Death and His Shadow
by sugarswirls
Summary: Raito Yagami is your typical star student. That is, until one night when he catches a deadly fever and L, a bored god of death, phases through his bedroom window to take his soul away. But how can he steal the soul of someone who won't die? AU RxLxR
1. A Date with Disaster

**DS**

**Disclaimer:** I wish I owned Death Note.

Chibi Misa: Omigee! A Death Note fanfic!

Me: Yep! My second fanfic! Since my first one's going so well, I figured I'd write a fanfiction about my second and current obsession, Death Note.

Chibi Misa: This idea came to our beloved Swirl at about twelve thirty on the night before Christmas Eve.

Me: Eh, yeah. Pretty much. And it devoured my break.

Chibi Misa: Which is good!

Me: Totally. I'm an obsessive writer. Which is why I love reviews! Especially long fluffy ones. They're cuddly.

Chibi Misa: So make Swirly happy and she just might give you an update.

Me: Huzzah! Well, you've heard-

Chibi Raito: Or read.

Me: Too much of me and my fellow chibi companions. I'll bet you want to read that fanfic you clicked on the link to read, yes? Well, read, review, and relax.

**D S 1**

Somewhere in the vast, incomprehensible, inconceivable expanse of the universe, somewhere among infinite glittering stars and stark black voids, somewhere, somehow, someone leaned back in his swivel chair.

And yawned.

One could only make so many conjectures as to what caused that yawn. L knew. He'd thought of every last one of them.

Twice.

The fact of the matter was, he was bored. It was the same day after day. He'd take a cold shower, eat a breakfast of what tasted an awful lot like wood shavings, sulk for an hour, and then get an e-mail from He-Who-Must-Remain-Anonymous, explaining to him that he had exactly twenty four hours to retrieve the soul of the human whose name was enclosed.

Yes, L was a god of death. At least he liked to think himself to be. In reality, he was called a psychopomp. Strange name, he knew. It made him sound like a prison inmate. Hence his tendency to call himself a god of death instead.

A psychopomp was, by definition, a being who assisted the soul's transcending from the human world into the spiritual one. Heaven, Hell, Shangri-la, Nirvana, Las Vegas, take your pick. In short, he was a mini-death.

There used to be a Great Death, a Kira. Things in general were much more interesting when he was around. He was originally human, as all Deaths were, but L didn't feel like reciting the details of his coming to Kira-dom. That Kira was long gone. He'd read in the newspaper eons ago that Kira died.

He choked on a muffin.

Hah!

What a way to go. Choked on a chocolate-blueberry muffin and _died_. In short, his death was nothing special. Nothing too exciting. It was very boring. Very adequate.

Everything in this world was _adequate._

L childishly huffed and rolled his eyes.

He hated adequate.

Most humans would expect the realm of the psychopomp to be all fire and brimstone (what, with them being death gods of a sort). Someone being burned alive here, someone being pulled apart there. But it wasn't like that at all. As a matter of fact, L had voted at every one of the past seven hundred and twenty four task force meetings to make it more 'fire and brimstone.' The way things used to be.

To no avail. It was a bureaucracy. Everything had to be done a certain way. There were rules too. Too many to possibly follow correctly. Everything was stacked up in neat, orderly, manila files in beige filing cabinets. All houses were exactly the same color, shape, and style. And, everything, was, separated, by, neat, little, commas.

You know, just to keep everything in order.

L yawned again and nodded in front of his computer screen. He was tired for the sake of being tired. Perhaps he could drink something to wake him up. Then he took one look at the forlorn cup of lukewarm, black coffee sitting at the corner of his desk and decided that life was meaningless.

Suddenly, something slightly less boring happened.

A yellow envelope icon appeared in the corner of the monitor and an ordinary little jingle sounded.

L had mail.

He clicked on the icon and something slightly more boring happened. He had one unread e-mail message from The Man Upstairs.

Just like yesterday.

And the day before that and the day before that and the day before that…

Whatever. It wasn't going to do him any good sitting there and thinking of a thousand ways _not_ to read his e-mail.

L clicked on the icon

_Raito Yagami._

_Tokyo, Japan._

L saw nothing awe-inspiring about that. His eyes skimmed the short profile of this 'Raito Yagami' character. Maybe he shouldn't have. It would've been much more amusing if L had been left to figure out all this information by himself. Regardless, he read further. He was notified of where this human lived, what he liked, who his friends were, and what he looked like, but…

Something was missing. Normally, the e-mail would immediately specify to what domain the person's soul would be delivered. Maybe he was an atheist, in which case L would simply take his soul out of his body and it would go where ever it damn well pleased.

That was probably the case.

He read on until he came upon yet another interesting piece of information.

_Occupation: Student._

Odd. L was only supposed to cater to the deaths of old people. Natural causes and all.

Maybe Yagami had some sort of degenerative disease. No. That wasn't in L's field.

Boy, was he a really old college student. No. That didn't fit in either. According to the description included in the message, he was five foot nine and still had light brown-red hair.

L found himself getting excited.

Finally, something unpredictable! Normally, L would stay as far away from the unpredictable as he could. The popular lifestyle had rubbed off on him. However, he supposed that it was good to have a surprise every once in a millennia.

He skimmed the e-mail once more before closing the window and shutting his computer down. Feeling refreshed, he stretched his arms behind his back and sighed pleasantly.

Time to get to work.

----

He decided to take the bus home.

He didn't know why. He was quite capable of walking. Perhaps he was tired. That wasn't good, especially considering the immense amount of homework he'd accumulated throughout the day. And he had a test tomorrow.

He'd manage.

He was Raito Yagami.

Of course he could manage.

He stepped off the bus when the time came.

Then it started to rain. Raito sighed, hefting his backpack over his head and trekking onward. He only had two blocks to go. He'd be fine if it didn't start pouring.

It started pouring.

Raito took a moment to glare at the sky. The day certainly wasn't turning out as he'd wanted.

Raito broke into a run when his hands got cold. Since when did things get this bad? The news that morning predicted sunny skies all day, but so far the sky had been overcast and now it was raining. Raito knew he shouldn't have trusted the forecast. He splashed through a puddle and into the street.

"Hey!" someone yelled off to Raito's left. He snapped to the side to be greeted head-on by the blinding glare of a halogen motorcycle headlight. Its rider, who he couldn't see at the moment because he was _blind,_ continued to swear at him. Raito only growled and gave the cyclist the evil eye. He thought about flipping him off, but that was too much.

Raito left him alone.

The cyclist sped off, still harping at him. Judging from his voice, he smoked too much. Raito wondered if he'd been out drinking too. Raito sighed to himself.

Honestly.

When did humankind get so _stupid_? Better yet, what was he doing complaining about it? As much as he would've liked to, Raito couldn't lift a finger against it. If he could choose who lived and who died, he might've considered taking action.

Raito laughed to himself as a big, wet drop of water dripped off of his hair and onto his nose. That would be the day. Yagami Raito, Angel of Death.

With that, the Angel of Death sprinted up the street because his jacket was getting soaked.

When he walked in the door, Raito was dripping wet.

"Nii-san!" came a familiar squeal from the kitchen. Not long after, Raito was pounced upon by a very happy younger sister.

"Hey, Sayu," he said, pulling one of the brunette pigtails on her head.

"Did mister genius have a good day in school today?" Sayu winked and yanked her captive pigtail out of Raito's fingers. Then, she made a face at him like she'd just gotten a whiff of something that had been dead a few weeks. "Aww, Raito," she whined, "you're all wet!"

"It's raining," Raito stated as-a-matter-of-factly, "that's what happens when it rains. People get wet."

"That doesn't change the fact that you're wet," his sister argued.

"Are _you_ going to change that?" he asked rhetorically.

"Mom's in the dining room. She'll do it for me."

"Hm."

"I baked cookies."

"I can smell them."

"You smell like dog," said Sayu.

And Raito let it slide.

He had a slightly more agreeable greeting from his mother, who patted him on the back, smiled, frowned, and then told him that if he didn't change clothes he'd catch a cold. Raito told her that he would and her scrunched, wrinkled old face lit up in a smile. She said something along the lines of 'that's my Raito,' and whistled herself into the kitchen.

When Raito reached his room, he dropped his backpack onto the floor and fell onto his bed with a thud.

And he did it gracefully, by God.

The ride-walk-run-race to his house combined with the added bonus of one flight of stairs had taken a considerable amount of energy. Which was strange. Was he out of shape? Perhaps he should play more tennis.

Or perhaps he was just anxious because of the test he had tomorrow.

It didn't make much sense, since Raito knew he'd pass it with flying colors anyway. He stuck with that reason though. He was anxious because of his test.

That was all.

He decided to put on a new shirt. His previous shirt was getting itchy and uncomfortable from all the rainwater it had soaked up. He pulled the offending khaki-colored cotton shirt over his head and replaced it with a green knit sweater. Then, Raito yawned, got comfortable, and dozed for twenty minutes.

He didn't have a lot to do lately.

_Except his homework._

Raito propped the upper half of his body up on one arm and peered over the side of his bed at his backpack. Deciding that he was much too tired to be productive, he flopped back down and left it alone.

It felt so good to close his eyes. Despite having nothing to do, Raito always felt that he was so busy. Such was the stress of being the number one student in his class. He'd heard he had the highest grades in Japan a few times. As much as he would've liked to believe it, it was impossible. There was always going to be someone more intelligent than him.

Someone more influential.

Raito blew a puff of air at his bangs.

Yeah. Whatever.

Someone knocked on Raito's door. Just then, his nap ended. "Raito? You want a cookie?" It was Sayu. Of course, Raito couldn't resist.

"Sure," he mumbled, "come in."

He was still laying on his stomach on top of his bed when Sayu bounced in carrying a plate of cookies. Raito arched one graceful eyebrow when he noticed that she was hiding something else behind her back.

He didn't mention anything until she had already set the cookies down on his desk.

Lest she steal them back or something.

"What do you have there?" he hinted, pointing to the arm that was currently hidden behind her back. Sayu smiled bashfully and blushed a shade of light pink. "Raito," she began, "could you help me with my homework?" she held out her green math textbook.

Raito grinned. Sayu was his sister. He was her all-knowing, all-seeing college student brother. It was only right that he should help her. He weighed the pros and cons of her proposition before beckoning her over. She smiled, got herself to half-running start, and leapt onto his bed. The pillows and Raito all bounced a few inches.

"So what do you need help with this time?" he asked Sayu once she had wriggled her way over to him. She dropped her book down in front of her and flipped it open. "Quadratic equations," she giggled nervously.

"Again?" Raito scoffed.

"Well they're really difficult!" Said Sayu with a huff of indignation.

Raito sighed. "Sure. What do you need help with?"

"All of it."

And that was how he, Raito Yagami, straight A student, spent the remainder of his evening.

After repeating the same problem for her for about, oh, the _thirty fifth time_, she thanked him before bouncing out of the room in the exact way she had come.

With no idea what she was doing.

Raito was comfortable leaving her in her state of ignorant bliss. She'd get the hang of it sooner or later.

He'd just started his own homework when his mom called him down for dinner.

Just his luck.

He closed his notebook as quickly as he had opened it and headed for the dining room.

Raito sighed. The same thing happened every single day of the week. He went to school, came home, helped his sister with her homework, ate dinner, did his own homework, took a shower, and went to sleep. It was all very…

Boring.

To say the least.

Even the test that he was supposedly so anxious for was predictable. In short, Raito wouldn't be surprised if he died of boredom.

He ate dinner, which had suddenly become so bland due to his train of thought that he forgot what it was. After that, he hauled himself back up the stairs and forced himself to finish his homework before he dropped dead of boredom.

Raito was almost sure that this feeling was a phase and it would pass in an hour. No, he was absolutely sure. Raito wasn't the sort of person to loaf around and do nothing when there was work to be done.

He must've caught a cold in the rain.

Yeah.

Until ten thirty, Raito was sitting stiffly at his desk, scribbling essays on various pieces of paper and printing out others. When he was done, Raito felt exhausted. He was definitely coming down with something.

He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it into his laundry hamper before climbing into bed and getting comfortable. As time passed, Raito got extremely hot. One by one, he peeled the blankets off of his bed until he was left with nothing but a sheet.

Then he got annoyed.

He couldn't go to school tomorrow. Not like this. But if he didn't, he'd miss his test. Then he'd be royally fucked.

Of course he could always go to school and fail it horribly. Maybe then, since he was a star student and all that jazz, he'd be able to retake it. Now, Raito didn't exactly expect that to happen, but it was worth a try.

He rolled over in his bed again. On a whim, he glanced at the illuminated digital clock on his wall.

Twelve forty seven.

And he was still awake.

God damn!

He groaned in anguish and smashed his face into a pillow. There was no pain like the pain one experienced when he knew he had to go to sleep, but couldn't. Such was Raito's pain at the moment, and he desperately wanted it to end.

Holy shit, was it hot in that room.

But it was cold outside.

Raito swore under his breath. He was in his bed, and the window was, well… over there, for lack of a better phrase. He _really_ did not want to get up and open it, as tempting as it sounded. If he got up, which he doubted he would be able to do in his current state, he'd be too exhausted to open the window.

He wanted to sleep, didn't he? He didn't have a problem with passing out to get that way, did he? No. So why didn't he want to get up and open the GOD DAMN WINDOW?

Maybe if he was lucky, he'd get so hot that he'd start having fun little hallucinations.

He didn't have to wait long.

As he was glaring at the window, willing it to throw itself open, he saw something that looked like a giant spider phase through the curtains.

But the spider had only four legs.

And it was wearing a white shirt and old, faded jeans.

…

Then the thing looked at him. It wasn't a spider at all. It was just a scrawny boy with messy dark hair, huge, black, panda eyes, and incredibly bad posture.

He stared dumbly at the thing for a few seconds. And the creepy thing was…

It was staring straight back.

Raito's hair stood on end and he jumped two feet in the air. Fuck! He wasn't hallucinating at all! This guy must've climbed up to the second floor, onto his balcony, and then into his window. And now he was planning on robbing Raito of his TV and various other important things… that he couldn't think of at the moment.

"Who the hell are you and what the fuck are you doing in my room?" Raito yelled at the gangly thief perched on his office chair.

The thing cocked its head and looked at him through those muddy, black holes-for-eyes. "What?" it said, biting the tip of its thumb between his teeth, "You can see me?"

"Fuck yes I can see you!" Raito shouted, pointing a finger at the thing and crawling to the edge of his bed.

"No, you can't," it said definitely.

"Yes I can!"

"Nope," it said before leaping off of the chair and walking over to the bookshelf, as if denying Raito's existence altogether.

"Yes," said Raito.

"No."

"I can see you, you fucking loon!" Raito repeated, reaching for the curtain rod he kept behind his headboard. "Now if you don't get out, I'll have to do something you'll regret."

"It won't work," the thing said.

"I'll hit you," persisted Raito.

The spider-thing looked him straight in the eyes, tilted its head, and then replied, "That's impossible because I'm not here."

"Who the HELL are you?" harped Raito.

"No one," the thing said, "Now sleep. Sleeeeeep…" it stuck its arms out and waved its hands in front of its body, as if trying to pull the curtain of unconsciousness over Raito's eyes. It wasn't working. He decided to tell it that before it made a fool of itself.

"Not working," he said.

"No?" the thing looked deeply confused.

"No," confirmed Raito, impatiently tapping the curtain rod against the floor. The spider-thing sat back down in the chair, chewed on its thumb again, and tilted its head multiple times. It squinted its baggy eyes and crooned appraisingly to itself. It did that for several minutes and Raito had half a mind to take it by surprise and bludgeon it to death.

Suddenly, it said something.

"Do humans always sleep in their underwear?"

Raito blinked, then looked down to see that he was indeed, dressed down to his boxers. Where was the shock in that? It was much more comfortable. But, comfortable or not, Raito couldn't help but feel a bit vulnerable. A slight blush blossomed on his already flushed face.

Did this thing have no shame?

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" he snarled, brandishing the curtain rod so the thing would get his drift and get out of his room before he beat it senseless.

"You can still see me?"

"Yes!"

"Mmm…" it crooned. Raito noticed for the first time that it wasn't wearing any shoes. And that it had inhumanly long toes.

Since the thing had decided to ask him a pointless question, Raito decided that he'd make things even. "Why aren't you wearing any shoes?" he asked.

The thing cocked its head at him yet again and considered his question. "It's much more comfortable that way. Why aren't you wearing any shoes?"

Raito glanced in the direction of his feet before doing a double take. It could've wanted him to look down so it could catch him by surprise and knock him out. His eyes snapped instantly back up at the spider-thing. He half expected it to be right beside him, waiting to knock his block off.

It wasn't.

It was sitting at the exact same spot in the exact same chair, toes curled contentedly around the seat cushion in the exact same way.

Raito was dumbfounded. If it was a thief, it would've already attempted to shut him up. It would've hit him square in the back of the head. Plus, any normal person could see that Raito was sick with a fever, and that his reaction time was probably down a few notches.

And why was it just hanging around in his room?

It didn't make sense.

So much so that it made Raito all the more wary. Perhaps it hoped to lure him into a false sense of security.

Raito had already raised his voice a few times. His parents hadn't woken up, luckily, but he heard a shuffling noise coming from somewhere in the house. It was probably Sayu sneaking her own cookies into her room. He didn't want Sayu to come to his aid if he made too much noise, but if he screamed loudly enough, he could get his mother and father to wake up. They could call the police while Raito kept the thing occupied.

It was risky, but he could also see whether or not it would do anything to shut him up. If it got close enough, he could hit it with the rod and incapacitate it.

With his mind made up, Raito screamed.

The spider-thing gritted its teeth, clenched its eyes shut, and clapped its hands to its ears. Much to Raito's disbelief, the thing yelled at him to shut up.

Now was his chance!

He could hit it while it was still confused! Raito charged for the door of opportunity and lunged for the thing. He swung the curtain rod with all of his might and it arched through the air with a deafening 'whoosh!'

Raito found that last bit to be quite distracting.

He connected with _nothing_.

And since he was distracted, he let fly longer than he should have and the rod smashed headlong into his bookcase.

He blinked, wide eyed, for a very long time.

The thing was right in front of him. Well within arm's reach. So why hadn't he hit it? It had since stopped screeching and was now glaring at him with its hands still over its ears, looking quite displeased with him.

Raito panted and swept his sweaty bangs away from his face. He had a one hundred plus degree fever, but he was quite sure he wasn't hallucinating. Somehow, he'd swung at the thing when it was two feet away from him.

And missed.

"Raito? Raito-kun?" an urgent and desperately worried pair of voices came from the hall. So he'd woken his parents up and they were coming to see what was wrong. And what was wrong was a thing that had morphed through his wall and that he couldn't hit.

"Shit," said Raito.

The door to his room opened and Raito warily took his eyes out of the apparition in front of him. He must've been quite a sight, in his boxers with a curtain rod in his hand standing in front of a hybrid spider-panda-man.

"Raito?" his father snapped. "What's going on?" Raito's mother crowded into the door, anxious to see what had her son so worked up.

Raito took a few much needed gasps of air. Could they not _see_ that there was a gangly thief sitting in the chair right in front of him? Then Raito did what he hadn't done in a long time.

He stuttered.

He looked from the thing in the chair, to the hole in his bookcase, to his parents, and back.

Sayu appeared in the door. "Raito-kun?" she whispered, "what's in the chair?"

So she could see him too?

But his parents couldn't. He didn't want to draw too much attention to her or himself. He'd talk to her later.

He glanced back at the scrawny thing sitting in the chair. Maybe it had disappeared.

No such luck.

It was still there, looking up at him with those big eyes. And apparently the only people who could see them were himself and Sayu.

Raito imagined he must've looked like an imbecile.

"Raito," his father repeated, walking slowly into the room as if his son were a serial killer. He probably seemed like it, slaughtering his bookcase like that. He kept one eye on his father, not wanting to look like he was staring into nothing. But at the same time, he didn't want to take his eyes off of that nothing.

Lest it decide that it wanted to attack him.

Raito's father told his mother to stay put when she took a step into his room. "I'll handle this," he muttered. Raito tried to stop breathing so hard, but it was difficult with the heat and all. He felt like his throat would close up and he'd die.

"Raito, are you alright?" his father spoke slowly. Raito expected him to. As chief of the police task force, he'd dealt with a few loonies in his time.

Raito got the feeling that 'Yeah,' wasn't going to do much for his dad. So he took another look at the thing in his chair, which had started playing with its toes, and he said nothing.

"Drop the curtain rod, Raito," his father suggested. Raito lamented parting with the rod, despite the fact that he could do nothing to harm his visitor with it. Seeing a reason to drop it, he let go.

When Raito's father deemed it was safe to approach him, he put one hand on Raito's forehead and flinched back. "Raito," his voice raised in astonishment, "you're burning up!"

The silent spell over the whole room shattered and his mom and sister spilled into the room as well. "We should take him to the hospital! Maybe he's hallucinating," his mother said as soon as she felt the heat Raito was sure was radiating from him.

"No," Raito's dad responded. Then he turned to Raito. "Raito, get into bed. I'll get you a bag of ice or something."

Raito wasn't listening. He was too busy staring at the thing that had invaded his room, which had since moved from its spot and was now examining the books on his shelf again. What was it, this thing that had appeared out of nowhere? A ghost maybe. Raito didn't like to think that he was hallucinating, but it was possible.

He was so enraptured, he didn't notice that his parents had been trying to talk to him for quite some time. His father had told Sayu to turn on the lights and she had, but the ghost remained there. Raito's father dusted off his glasses and peered in the direction of the bookcase. Raito assumed he was just looking at a bookcase. No strange, bug-eyed being.

Raito almost laughed.

He was totally off-his-rocker batshit.

"He's definitely looking at something," he heard his father mutter. "Sayu, go get some water for your brother. Sachiko, help me get him into bed."

Raito was herded by his mother and father to his bed.

Meanwhile, the spider-thing had situated itself on the office chair again, toes habitually curled around the seat. It was still chewing on its thumb and watching him very intently. Raito wondered what it was about himself that was so interesting. He checked to make sure that his mother and father were preoccupied enough not to notice, then scowled at it.

It made a face as if to say 'you're really weird,' and then amused itself by staring at the ceiling.

"Raito!" someone sighed, "He's seeing things again- Raito! Look at me!"

He was staring again, wasn't he? He needed to be more careful about that. Raito glanced over at his father, who had broken into a sweat because he was so worried. Feeling like his dad wanted him to say something, he smartly said, "What?"

"Let's just call an ambulance, Soichiro," said Raito's mom.

Soichiro Yagami sighed. "Just wait a minute. As soon as we get him a glass of water and a bag of ice, he'll be fine." Raito's mom took one look at her son and nodded. "I'll go get the ice," she said and left the room.

Immediately after she left, a very excited-looking Sayu came back with a glass of ice water for Raito. He downed it in two gulps. Sayu said she'd go and get him another glass of water and skipped out of the room.

"What do you see, Raito?" his father demanded.

But, again, Raito wasn't listening. Why? The thing was talking to him again. It pointed to the abandoned plate of cookies and said, "Do you mind if I have one?"

Raito looked over at his father, who was desperately trying to capture his attention. "Can you hear me?" he said, shaking Raito by the shoulders. He recognized this as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone and nodded. His dad stopped shaking him and the thing on his chair popped a cookie into its mouth. "Thanks," it said.

Raito was dumbfounded. His father didn't seem to hear it speak either. "Raito! Look at me!" he shook him again. Raito's attention snapped back to his father. "What do you see?" he repeated.

Then his mom hurried back into the room, followed by Sayu. His sister gave him another larger glass of water, which he still finished in less than five gulps. His mother placed the towel-wrapped bag of ice on his head and shoved a thermometer under his tongue.

The thing sat in its chair and laughed.

Raito wanted to get out of bed and smack that insane grin off its face. However, he had two adults, a little sister, and his pride to hold him down. If he _was_ totally off-his-rocker batshit, he didn't want his parents knowing about it.

And he certainly did not want to go to the hospital.

The digital thermometer beeped and his mom whipped it back out of his mouth. "Forty one point _seven_??!" she exclaimed in centigrade. Raito's eyebrows shot up.

Oh my.

Much higher and he would've died.

He glanced back over at the spider-thing, which was happily making cookies disappear. "You're welcome," it said between bites. A strange thing to say.

Raito's father's face appeared and blocked his view of the cookie thief. "Raito, stop looking over there. I don't know what you're seeing, but it's not real. Do you understand?"

"Dad, I-"

"Have another glass of water."

And Raito let it slide. He was all too happy to take the third glass of water off of his sister's hands. He drank every last drop and felt much more refreshed.

"Can you talk to me now?" asked Soichiro Yagami. Raito's mom leaned in as well and took one of Raito's hands in hers.

Raito eyed the giggling, cookie-eating thing one more time. "Yeah," he said, "I can talk."

"Good, good!" Raito's father patted him on the arm like it was no big deal. "Now tell me what you saw."

Raito didn't want to scare them enough to keep him away from school, which he had no doubt he'd be missing anyway. Having his parents know that he was hallucinating because of a high fever and not because he was stark raving mad, however, could prove to be in his favor.

To hell with it. He threw caution to the wind and explained. "Well," he began, thinking. Maybe if he exaggerated enough, he'd make the spider-thing angry enough to do something rash. He could make it give itself away. Battle plan in mind, he continued. "_It's_ this _thing_," said Raito. The thing started nibbling on a cookie. "I'm not sure if it's human. It's got four really spindly legs, bug eyes, and a crooked back." The thing halted almost imperceptibly in its cookie conquest before snatching up another one. Score! He had to jeer just a little more and maybe Raito could get a rise out of it.

"It has monkey toes," he elaborated to an eager audience. Even Sayu, with yet another glass of water, stopped and listened in. "They're really dirty monkey toes. Come to think of it, it doesn't look like it's taken a shower in a month." The thing gave him a warning glare and aloofly munched on another cookie. "Its hair is disgusting and matted in areas," said Raito, "and there are huge bags under its eyes. It's wearing a white sweater and a pair of old, baggy, cheap looking jeans." He glanced over at the thing on the chair, which was now eating its cookies only _marginally_ faster. "It acts a lot like a little kid and I could guess that it isn't very mature either."

Then it all-out glared at him.

Score. He was all set. He could conjure up a way to make it mad.

First off, when Raito called it an 'it' and a 'thing,' it ate another cookie. Raito could interpret this as a defense reflex.

Secondly, when he insulted its looks the first time, it stopped eating for a split second like it was considering whether or not to be offended. In the end, it kept on eating. No faster, no slower. Raito could hypothesize that the thing's appearance didn't affect it.

The third time Raito insulted it about its hygiene. Judging from the glare he received, it didn't like to be referred to as dirty, which could loop back to its dislike of being referred to as if it weren't human.

The fourth time, and second time that Raito insulted its looks, it didn't respond in any remarkable way. Raito did this to see whether or not he was correct in his assumption that the thing didn't care about its looks. He was right.

Lastly, Raito insulted its intelligence. If looks could kill, Raito would be dead. But he'd die happy.

Why?

Because he knew exactly what made the spider-thing tick. His audience was bewildered as to why he had elaborated so precisely. But there were two audiences in this room: His family, and the thing in the chair.

From this information, he pieced together his insult. It wasn't exactly what one would call world-class insult material, and it was very choppy.

But he was improvising.

As long as he got a reaction from the thing, he was content. He whipped out the insult that he absolutely _knew_ would affect it most.

"Dirty bastard. I bet it's no smarter than a goldfish."

It Glared. Oh shit, did it Glare. Glare with a capital 'G.' But it contained itself. It perched aloofly on its chair and preened its dirty little proverbial feathers. So it disliked to be vulnerable. Sort of like himself. It did _not_ want the enemy to know when it was wounded. Again, somewhat like him. Oh, they were both going to get along.

Swimmingly.

Raito, who was very happy with himself, relaxed in his bed with his icepack still resting on his forehead. He was a bit disappointed that the thing was so well mannered about his derision, but he didn't let it irk him.

The thing refused to allow itself to be bothered by his insults and lounged back in the office chair. If it was like him, as Raito suspected, it was probably thinking of a witty comeback. And it would think of one right about…

"Says the boy who tried to whack me with a stick after I told him numerous times that it wouldn't work."

_Twice,_ thought Raito righteously. 'Numerous' was blowing things out of proportion.

He hid his indignation well. His parents didn't suspect a thing.

After he went on a five minute long rant about how un-cool and stupid his hallucination was.

Smooth, Raito Yagami.

Real smooth.

His father shook his head, then mussed up his hair. "You scared us, Raito. Stay in bed. Remember, if you see anything unusual, it's not real. Alright?"

"Sure," Raito agreed.

"And if you're not feeling well, tell us. We worry about you, you know?" his mom cut in.

The thing ate another cookie.

"Yes mom," said Raito.

Sayu thrust another full glass of ice-cold water in his face and gave him a peck on the forehead. "Night-o Raito!" she said smartly before skipping out the door. "Don't die!" Raito could laugh at how close she was to the truth.

After making sure that he was indeed not going to die, his parents reluctantly left his bedside. They spared not one glance for the now empty cookie platter. When they were gone, Raito had a total of one ice pack, three towels, two dry and one wet, five glasses of water, one full and three empty, no cookies, and one invisible creature in an office chair.

Speak of the devil and he spoke back. "I found that insult to be particularly tasteless," it informed him. Raito guffawed when he was absolutely sure his parents were out of earshot. "I'm sure," he retorted.

It gave him a sidelong leer. "By the way," it said pointedly, "I'm a 'he.' Not an 'it.'"

Raito snickered again. "'Particularly tasteless,'" he quoted.

"Just because your insult was weak doesn't mean I can't defend myself," it-_he_ pointed out. Oh sure. Raito rolled his eyes. He liked to argue, did he?

Well, two could play at that game.

---

L's first impression of Raito Yagami was that he was an ignorant prick without an imagination.

In short, he was the spitting image of L himself. And L was very proud. He couldn't quite bring himself to be angry at Yagami. L had, after all, come to steal his soul and whatnot.

Also, those cookies were damn good. He hadn't tasted anything better in his entire life. He needed more of those cookies…

Speaking of cookies, L was sure there were a few crumbs left on that plate. He snatched it up, licked his thumb and his forefinger, and picked up every crumb he could see. It was risky to eat so much human food at once, but L didn't care. All he cared was that there were a few crumbs of cookie goodness still clinging to the glossy surface of that plate.

L noted that Raito was unusually silent during all this. He was very aware that Yagami was watching him, however. He was much too quiet to be doing much else. And L could assume that he wasn't one to let his guard down. He found the scrutiny quite uncomfortable, but he withstood it for the sake of those delicious crumbs.

"You like cookies," Raito observed.

"Yes," said L.

"Why are you here?"

L checked to see whether or not any crumbs had escaped his gaze before tossing the plate back onto Raito's desk. Then he looked over at Raito, who still looked laughably ridiculous with that enormous bag of ice on his head.

He considered the question. To tell or not to tell? In any case, if this Yagami person really could see him, L would be hanging around a lot longer than he expected. He couldn't retrieve Raito's soul while he was still alive, and he couldn't leave for his own realm without it.

What was more, if Raito _saw _him, that meant…

Well.

L didn't want to believe it. It was great and horrible at the same time. If he really did see L, a psychopomp, in the human realm…

Oh boy. How was he supposed to explain this? L always did hate explaining things. Especially when he knew that the listener would ask him to repeat himself several times.

In any case, he decided that telling Raito what he was and why he was here would be unavoidable at this point. "Well, I'm here to collect your soul, of course," he said.

Raito gave him a skeptical glare. "Oh?"

L blew a puff of air from his lips and drew his eyebrows down in frustration. This was going to be difficult. "I'm a psychopomp. Someone who's in charge of guiding the souls of the recently departed into the afterlife."

Raito gave him 'the look.'

L dreaded 'the look.' He knew what was coming next.

"'Recently departed?'" he quoted. L grumbled, "Yes. You were supposed to die." He then rocked back onto his heels on the office chair and chewed on his thumb. "Which is what I don't understand. I assume you were going to die of that fever you had. But that doesn't make sense. If you were going to die of a fever, it wouldn't have been me coming to get you, or would it?" L was blissfully unaware of the fact that he was talking to himself.

"What are you talking about?" said Raito cluelessly.

"I'm one of the many in charge of doing away with…" here, he chose his words carefully. He didn't want any more questions, "old people." When Raito quirked an eyebrow at him again, L knew he wasn't satisfied.

"Natural deaths," he corrected.

Raito eyed him again, "And dying of a fever is unnatural?"

"Old age," L rephrased.

"I see," said Raito coolly. L regarded him carefully. He could tell that Yagami was bothered by this, but he wasn't wigging out as L had suspected. Despite his fever, he had his wits about him.

Interesting.

He found Raito Yagami very interesting.

_So then_… L thought, nibbling on his thumb, Raito didn't die. Did L inadvertently save him somehow? Well, if he hadn't come into the room and Raito hadn't seen him, the boy wouldn't have yelled and his family never would have come in with ice or water.

Hmm…

"So, since you're a god of death or something," L's lips quirked upward with pride at Raito's choice of words, "Am I not supposed to see you?"

"No," L answered. Then, he glanced over at Raito, looking generally pathetic on that bed of his. "You really _can_ see me, can't you?"

"I've been telling you that for the past hour," Raito pointed out. L nodded absently, "True, true. I suppose I couldn't believe it." He saw the beginning of a triumphant smile worm its way onto the Yagami boy's face.

Keh.

Recognizing one's fault was a thing to be proud of as well, wasn't it? He let Raito gloat.

"So what does this mean?" he asked. L looked him squarely in the eyes, "What does what mean?"

"My seeing you and all. You going to kill me and forcefully take my soul out of my body?" Raito asked, crossing his arms.

L scoffed. "Of course not! You humans definitely do like to make things up, don't you?"

Raito rolled his eyes. "So what happens now?" he asked.

L bit his thumbnail. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "I think I may have discovered something, though."

Raito raised his eyes as if to say, 'and that would be..?'

"Have you ever heard of Death, Raito-san? Not death, but The Death? The Grim Reaper? Something along those lines?"

"Of course," said Raito as if all that was common knowledge.

"Good, good," said L, "Well, where I come from, he's called Kira."

"Kira?" asked Raito, "Sounds like 'Killer.'"

"Yes."

"I don't like it."

"Well, get used to it."

"Why?" Raito asked.

"Because," L said carefully, "You've seen me and you've been saved from death. There is only one explanation for that."

"And that is?" asked the brunette. L could tell he was very much on edge about this. So he decided to put him out of his misery.

"I believe that you, Raito Yagami," L began with as much monotonous pizzazz as he could, "Are Kira."

----

Chibi Raito: What?

Chibi Misa: Yay!

Chibi L: -eats a cookie-

Me: Hooray! Chapter one is DONE!

Chibi Misa: She really burned midnight oil for this one. Three days! She wrote a chapter in three days! Nothing miraculous about that, but she normally updates in about, oh… a MONTH?

Me: Quiet, you.

Chibi Misa: Well, regardless of her slowness, she loves reviews.

Me: Damn straight!

Chibi Misa: And she offers a special reviewing gimmick. If you review, you get as many free virtual cookies as you could want.

Me: No calories!

Chibi Misa: -eats a cookie-

Chibi L: -steals Misa's cookie-

Chibi Misa: -cries-

Me: Rest assured, L won't steal your cookie should you choose to review. Unless you want him to…

Chibi Misa: Awright! Review for cookies and for updates if you like! And if you see something spelled wrong, let Swirl know. She can't stand typos.

Me: EEEEeeEEeeEeeEEEe!

Chibi Misa: Review, review, review!


	2. The Great Kira

**DS**

**Disclaimer:** If I were as talented as Tsugumi Ohba or Takeshi Obata, would I be writing fanfiction?

Chibi Misa: You'd have made all your lovely ideas into a manga!

Me: Like, totally.

Chibi Raito: And she'd be doing something slightly more productive in her spare time.

Me: Quiet, you.

Chibi L: It's true though, isn't it?

Me: This is the only way I know how to LIIIVE!

Chibi L: O.o

Me: I live for reading and writing FANFICTION! And I live for your reviewers! Thanks to every last one of you! You make me feel all nice and fluffy inside! Mwahaha!

Chibi Raito: o.O

Me: Mouahahahahaha!

Chibi Misa: 'Kay! Cutting to fanfiction in three, two…

Chibi L: Read, review, and relax.

Chibi Misa: Now!

**D S 2**

"So let me get this straight," Raito growled disbelievingly. He was Death? _The_ Death? Kira, did he say? So he could just look at someone he hated and say 'die' and it would be done?

It was all too good to be true.

"Raito-san," groused the psychopomp, "You are Death. You decide who lives and who dies. It may seem impossible to comprehend, especially for _you_, but I assure you. It can be done."

He got the feeling that he should've been offended. Raito, however, was too preoccupied with more important matters. He heard the telltale rumbling of someone walking around. It was five thirty in the morning and Raito had already been caught once talking to his imaginary friend. He then learned that his parents were only planning to check up on him once that night.

Now it had changed to every half an hour.

Raito sighed.

He wasn't going to be able to go to school. He was going to miss his test. But what the hell. He had a fever and his parents thought he was a lunatic. He had an excuse.

The boy in the chair rolled his eyes and stopped twirling Raito's mechanical pencil. He set it back down on the desk and looked generally displeased as Raito's mother walked in.

"Raito, dear," she announced her presence quietly as she opened and closed the door to his room. He and the death god in the chair both looked over at her.

"Hm?" Raito croaked. God, did he sound awful. The invisible boy snorted at him.

"You're still awake?" she asked worriedly, "You've been awake all night. You poor boy." She took his temperature again.

Which really bothered him. Every time she stuck the thermometer into his mouth, the boy in his chair would snicker at him and tell him how goofy he looked. The worst part about it was that Raito could do absolutely nothing to stop him.

That sick fuck.

Kicking him while he was down…

"Your fever's gone down quite a bit," she observed when she scanned the thermometer.

"Has it?" Raito asked just to be polite. And his mother was very happy. "Yes," she said before making sure he was comfortable. Raito recognized this as her preparation for leaving the room. "We're taking you to the doctor's office at seven," she announced. "Your father and I want to make sure nothing happened to your brain. High fevers can do that."

Which Raito already knew.

"Try to get some sleep until then, okay dear?" She felt his forehead and mussed up his hair.

"Yes, dear," snickered the death god.

"I'll try," said Raito. He ignored the room's other occupant completely. His mom smiled. "Good night," she said.

_Good morning,_ thought Raito

"Oh, Raito?" She peeked back into the room as soon as she had shut the door. He twisted his head around and looked at her. "Hm?"

"I thought I heard you talking to yourself again," she said.

Raito sighed. "I'm fine mom. You're hearing things."

Sachiko squinted at him for a while before deciding that her son could take care of himself. "If you say so. But try to get some sleep. You need to sleep. If you want anything at all, just call me. Your father and I will be downstairs."

"Ask for a Porsche," said the gangly thing in the chair.

"Alright mom," Raito sighed, "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

She shut his door with a soft click. Raito strained his ears to hear her padding down the stairs. As soon as her footsteps vanished, Raito's head snapped over to the other boy. He was bemusedly flicking the pencil back and forth on the desk.

"Listen, you…" Raito growled.

"Is your mother always this nice to you?" interrupted the death god. Raito sighed exasperatedly and melted into his blankets. Why him?

"You've asked your fair share of questions," the chair-dweller pointed out, "Is it wrong for me to ask one of you?"

"Yes."

"Yes it's wrong or yes she's always nice to you?"

"She's always nice to me."

"Mmm…" hummed the death god. He started twirling the pencil again. "You humans are strange."

Raito coughed, "I feel the same way about you."

"Ouch," said the death god.

Come to think of it, he had no way to refer to this thing except 'the death god,' 'he,' 'the boy in the chair,' et cetera. Did he have a name? Raito decided to ask him.

His eyes widened ever so slightly, then he let go of the pencil and started abusing his thumb again. Raito snorted. It wasn't a hard question. Maybe he really didn't have a name.

"Ryuzaki."

"Pardon?" said Raito.

"My name is Ryuzaki," the mini-death repeated.

_Ryuzaki…_

A decent name. It took him long enough to come up with it. Raito doubted it was real, but he didn't feel like badgering Ryuzaki any more than he already had.

Some other day, maybe.

Raito didn't bother telling Ryuzaki his name. He already knew it. He'd probably already known for a long time. He knew close to nothing about Ryuzaki. He knew nothing about death gods in general. In short, he felt that it was better to overestimate than it was to underestimate him.

"Hm," said Raito.

"You seem very fond of that 'Hm' of yours."

"Lay off."

"Lay off what?"

A _very_ long sigh. Raito wasn't going to get any sleep. He had so many questions he wanted answered. And he absolutely knew none of them were going to be answered. Ryuzaki wasn't going to bother with him any more. He wasn't sure whether he'd be able to bother with the mini-death for much longer either.

Ryuzaki once again padded over to his bookshelf and examined it. He crouched down with that hunched back of his and squinted at row after row of books.

"Do you have any books that were written after the year two thousand?" he asked with a hand to his chin.

Raito arched one eyebrow. "Yeah. Why?"

"Looking at your shelf, I don't think there are any books I haven't read at least a hundred times."

"Ryuzaki, those are_ encyclopedias_."

"Precisely."

Raito's eye twitched. It wasn't possible. He was now able to make an estimate as to how old Ryuzaki really was. Somewhere in the range of…

Five thousand years.

Human years.

Or more.

One couldn't possibly read the entire World Encyclopedia set from A to Z in one lifetime. Let alone one hundred lifetimes.

That bit of information alone was impossible.

"The two thousand five edition?" Raito confirmed carefully.

"Quite right," said Ryuzaki.

Like Raito thought earlier. It was impossible. If one couldn't read the several volumes of the letter 'A' in one year, yet Ryuzaki had read the entire set over a hundred times in one year…

"Just out of curiosity," Raito began, "does time happen to pass around ten thousand times slower in your world?"

Ryuzaki looked over his shoulder at him. The corner of his pale lips turned upward and his large eyes brightened considerably. He tilted his head to the side again, looking very thoughtful. "You catch on quite quickly, Raito-san."

Raito blinked. Was that a compliment?

"Time does pass… differently in my world. Or perhaps different in yours? In other worlds, time does not pass at all."

…_Other worlds?_

"We 'death gods,' as you say, do not get old very quickly," said Ryuzaki. He made an approving noise before deftly pulling out a rather small book from Raito's other un-destroyed bookshelf. "I suppose this will do. I've only read it nine hundred and eighty nine times."

With that, he perched on the chair again, curling his toes around the seat as he normally did. Raito watched in rapt fascination the way Ryuzaki insisted on reading his book. He pinched the binding with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. When he wasn't busy turning pages with his free hand, he kept it near his lips where he could chew on his thumb if he wanted. He shifted his weight onto one foot and itched his leg with the other, then set them both near the edge of the chair again.

How odd.

"I appreciate the attention, Raito-san, but your father is coming up the stairs."

Raito scoffed. What a nice way to tell someone that he was staring. Raito was _not _staring. He didn't want it to seem like Ryuzaki had won, but he didn't want his dad to walk in on him and catch him by surprise either. He rolled onto his side and pretended he was asleep.

He heard his father hover around the door, as if wondering whether or not he'd like what he saw, then he heard the door open with a click. Directly after, Raito had a _very_ bad feeling. It was the feeling one felt when he knew something was wrong, but had no idea what it was. A strange fluttering of the stomach, 'Oh shit,' sort of feeling.

Then he found out why.

His father couldn't see Ryuzaki. But he could definitely see the book.

Shit.

Of course, if luck was with him that night, which it most certainly _wasn't_,Raito's dad wouldn't be looking that way. He stood at the doorway for a long time. Then he started walking toward the desk. Raito's heart pounded. Oh shit. He was looking at the floating book. Raito had to open one eye.

His father was currently examining the book, but it was sitting on the desk. Not in the air.

Oh thank God.

"You didn't think I'd be that stupid, did you?" said Ryuzaki, who was currently perched just out of his immediate range of sight on his footboard. Raito had to muster up all of his strength to keep from sighing with relief.

Soichiro wandered back over to the fake-sleeping form of his son and ruffled up his hair. Then he stood in the same place for a few seconds. Raito willed him out of the room. And there he went. The door clicked shut behind him and Raito stayed completely still.

"Fast asleep," he heard his father mutter.

"Quite a family you have," remarked Ryuzaki. He shimmied back over to his chair and retrieved his book. Raito groaned at him and rolled over in his bed. "I wish I were asleep," he muttered.

He then buried his head in a pillow and tried to suffocate himself.

----

L found the brunette's antics infinitely amusing. The Great Kira had completely disregarded the bag of ice and was now rolling around with his face in his pillow, trying to asphyxiate himself to sleep. Perhaps while Raito was occupied, L could search and destroy another cookie or two. He wondered where his family kept them all.

Come seven o-clock and Raito had succeeded in putting himself to sleep. L knew not whether he had done it by suffocation or exhaustion. Nevertheless, he looked very happy.

His parents walked in not long after. It was peculiar, the way they stood there hesitating. L knew they were debating whether or not to awaken the son of theirs who had tried so fervently and desperately to put himself to sleep. In the end, they woke him up. He grumbled once, pushed his mother's hand away, and rolled over the first time. The second, they all but jabbed him in the side and he was wide awake.

He glanced at L. Most likely confirming that he _did_ exist and that Raito wasn't hallucinating after all. Upon seeing L again, he grumbled and growled before making himself look busy.

Kira didn't like him all that much.

How droll.

His parents shoved him out the door and into the car. L contemplated accompanying this new Kira to the doctor's office. He never did like doctors. Needles either. Just thinking about them made his toes tingle.

On the other hand, L didn't want anything to happen to Raito.

Since Raito was the new Death.

That was all.

He had no idea what could possibly go wrong. That required his divine intervention, anyway. Most of the worst-case scenarios could be easily fixed.

Nothing incredibly _bad _was likely to happen. So why did L get a funny feeling that something bad _would_ happen? L's instincts had never tried to take him down a dark alley and mug him, so what would be the harm in trusting them?

He trotted toward the car, only to have the door slammed in his face by a very coolly indifferent Raito Yagami. L glared pointedly at him for a moment or two before demonstrating to Raito that what he had done was completely pointless. He crawled straight through the closed door and into the seat just beside the offending Yagami boy.

Raito made no move to notice him, and L didn't mind. After all, he had a façade to keep up.

The 'perfectly normal' façade.

With an exhausted rumble, the car lurched forward and they were on their way. L amused himself by resting his head on his arms against the window and peering out. He had a perfect view of the outside, because he had no reflection to get in his way.

And that was good.

He glanced over his shoulder to find that Raito was doing the same, through the other window. He wasn't looking out the window though. L could see in the glass that Raito's dark brown eyes were staying in one spot.

L hummed thoughtfully to himself.

Why was it that humans were so raptly fascinated with their own reflections?

Raito paid him no heed. Just continued staring at himself. L wondered whether he was narcissistic or just bored.

Probably both.

L wondered if he'd like his own reflection. Probably not. He never found himself particularly attractive. Then L made a face. Come to think of it, finding oneself attractive was the strangest thing he'd thought of yet.

He gazed over his shoulder where Raito was sitting in the same spot, doing the same thing.

Humans were really weird.

Several minutes later, the car stopped. L had since become extremely uninterested in the view from the back seat. So much so that he'd phased halfway into the floor of the car and begun to tinker with the transmission.

Raito's mother made an attempt at polite conversation with her son. He ignored her though. Well, he didn't _completely_ ignore her. He'd nod here or comment there. L could tell he wasn't listening though.

L cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. Was Raito always this moody in the morning? His lack of sleep probably contributed to it. That and his fever.

L never slept. Once or twice perhaps. He found it to be unproductive and bothersome. Dreams were the most bothersome. Nightmares even more so. L absolutely _knew _he'd never go outside without any pants on.

The doctor's office was like any other. There was a fish tank against the wall. The room was rank with deceptively comfortable looking chairs and prints of fading artwork. In the dead center of the waiting room was an enclosed area composed of a desk, filing cabinets, meticulously kept files, and a roll of cheap stickers.

What clinic could go without a roll of cheap stickers?

L searched the room for a worthy chair on which he could sit. He found one against the far wall. The upholstery was the hospital-standard dull green plastic leather. It was surrounded by several other chairs, all of which shared the same boring outfit.

Needless to say, L wasn't very happy. He put up with it though. A chair was a chair.

While his parents chatted away with the woman at the reception desk, Raito wandered over to L and fell into the chair right next to him. He stretched on his back and lay there for a minute. Then he reached both arms behind his head and looked over at L.

"Have a nice nap?" asked L uninterestedly.

"No," said Raito in a low voice.

L chewed on his thumb.

"Listen, I want to talk to you," Raito whispered.

"I'm listening," stated L.

"Go over to the other side of that fish tank over there." Raito said, pointing to the fish tank on the other side of the room with one elbow.

Ah, L knew what he was getting at. He padded over to the fish tank, curled his toes around the edge of the cushion, and waited.

Raito stretched on his back again, yawned, and then became suddenly interested in the tiny, orange goldfish in the fish tank. He took his sweet time moseying over in L's direction before he finally flopped into the chair on the other side of the glass. He stared bemusedly into the water, following whatever fish he could catch with his eyes.

"So, do people your age normally talk to fish?" L asked with his thumb between his teeth.

"It's better than talking to the ceiling," Raito reasoned.

"True," admitted L. He sighed. He knew exactly what Raito was going to rant about. He didn't want to hear it.

_I'm Death?_

_Like, seriously?_

Hah hah.

----

"So, how exactly do I kill people?" asked Raito.

He'd been wondering all morning. Even when he was asleep, he had a dream about killing someone. Unluckily for him, he couldn't remember how he'd done it. He also wondered that, if he killed someone, would he be a murderer? No. Of course not. If he was Death, everything he did would be justified.

But…

Ryuzaki leaned back in his chair and blinked his panda eyes. He was still chewing on his thumb, as if debating whether or not to tell him. "Are you sure you want to know?"

_No._

"Yes," said Raito.

"Mmmm…" hummed the mini-death. "You're not sure," he argued.

Raito blinked. Was he that obvious? He did want to know, of course. He just wasn't sure… oh hell. He was confusing himself.

"You snap your fingers," said Ryuzaki absently.

…_What?_

His amazement must've shown clearly on his face. Ryuzaki grinned at him and tilted his head again. "Easy, isn't it?" he said.

"Yeah," said Raito.

Ryuzaki's grin changed. His eyes narrowed somewhat, he nibbled on his thumb, tilted his head the other way, and hummed.

Had Raito said something wrong?

"You have only to think of or look at the person you want to kill, then snap the fingers on your right hand. It's very simple," said the mini-death.

Raito frowned. There was something Ryuzaki wasn't telling him. There had to be more to it than that. Raito had snapped his fingers on his right hand before and nothing happened. Strange. "That's it?" he asked carefully.

Ryuzaki's gaze became even more focused. "Yes," he said. He was gnawing on his nails now. Raito swore he couldn't understand anything Ryuzaki did. Just then, his black eyes sparkled and he smiled, revealing _perfectly_ white teeth. "Care to give it a try?"

Raito was taken aback. That was too bold. Was Ryuzaki challenging him? He narrowed his eyes and scowled.

Of course he could do it. He was Death.

Kira.

"Raito, honey?"

Raito snapped his head to the side. His mother and father were just about to follow a nurse through yet another door. Raito sighed, fixed Ryuzaki in place with a warning glare, and followed them.

Raito spared the mini-death one last glance before he left. He was still perched on the chair, just behind the fish tank, chewing on his thumb, and staring peculiarly at him with those gigantic, black, laughing eyes of his.

Raito let him laugh.

----

This Kira was indeed _very_ interesting. So that was what he'd been so moody about? He wanted to know how to perform his job. He was very capable of snapping his fingers, but could he go through with it?

He seemed confident enough in himself. At the same time, L knew that there was something tugging at the back of his mind and telling him that it was wrong.

And it was called a conscience.

L despised the human conscience. It got in the way of everything. At the same time, humans were so screwy: If they didn't have that nagging little hindrance, they'd most likely have made themselves extinct by then.

Hmm…

Maybe that was what he had been so anxious about earlier. Raito was going to kill somebody to prove to himself that it wasn't all that bad. L needed to keep an eye on him.

He slid out of his chair and wandered over to the closed door. He passed straight through it and peered into the hall beyond. There were doors scattered here and there, and the stark white corridors seemed to lead to everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

L rolled his eyes.

Lovely.

He'd have one hell of a time looking for Raito in that mess.

One by one, he explored the doors. He stuck his face in, looked around, then muttered and withdrew when he didn't find who he was looking for. He found two little girls, two mothers, one janitor, three doctors, and a fat guy in an orange sweater.

No Raito.

He peeked into another room.

There was no one there.

L took the time to breathe a heavy sigh of exasperation. He was never going to find Raito at this rate.

Just then, the room got darker. L realized that there was a window in the room.

And there was something blocking it.

He glanced up and froze. There in the window, squinting in at him, was a very ugly, very skinny, very unwelcome shinigami.

Oh, fuck.

It saw him and flew away from the window in a flash. L immediately pulled himself out of the door and jogged down the hall. Wherever that shinigami was headed, that was where Raito was. L was sure of it.

They were after him.

They had been after the other Kira too. Selfish bastards. Since he had choked on that muffin, the human world had been a virtual smorgasbord for shinigami.

A buffet.

They gorged themselves on human life.

When the old Kira was alive, a shinigami could barely support itself with the souls he left behind. Currently, a shinigami could pick out any human it wanted and kill it. L understood that it was quite boring.

However, the need to survive was apparently outweighing boredom at this point.

Still, why would a shinigami bother to come down to the human world when they could track and kill Raito from above? Something was amiss here. A _lot_ was amiss here.

L needed to find Raito.

"Raito-san!" L called, knowing full well that Raito couldn't respond even if he did hear. The fact of the matter was that L was panicking.

It was a very un-L thing to do.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of something bumping into a wall. Then a 'pardon me,' and then a mess of mumbling. L stopped and listened. A door even further down the hall swung open and who should step out of it, but Raito.

"I'll be right back. I have to go to the bathroom," he lied to the occupants of the room. Then he nodded and closed the door.

"Raito-san!" L yelled, waving one arm. Raito walked past another doctor, who just happened to be inconveniently roaming the halls, then made a slight motion with his arm.

Raito wanted L to follow him. L trotted over to him just as he took a left into yet another corridor.

"What is it?" he mumbled under his breath.

"I looked everywhere for you," stated L, slightly more at ease.

"Whatever," grumbled Raito. He glanced over at L. "You seem anxious."

"Yes," said L. Before Raito could make a smart comment about it, L explained. "You need to leave, now."

Raito was very quiet.

He stopped in the middle of the hall suddenly, much to L's surprise, and let his eyes rove the premises. Looking for bystanders and cameras maybe? He speed-walked over to a nondescript door.

A broom closet.

"I think they keep an emergency pair of keys in the broom closet in case someone gets locked in. Could you go in there and unlock it from the inside?"

"Sure," said L.

A secret, secluded place to talk. The closet was down quite a remote section of the hallway. There wasn't a single doctor in sight. Raito knew what he was doing.

L walked through the door, flipped on a light switch, and searched the shelves for an extra set of keys. In a short time, he found the keys in a little drawer with a few blank office documents, extra pencils, and a laser pointer.

The use of the laser pointer was a mystery to L.

Nevertheless, he picked the key out of the drawer and jammed it in the lock. "It's open," L announced.

The doorknob turned and Raito shut himself in. L seated himself on top of a plastic cabinet while Raito listened with an ear to the door, just to make sure the coast was clear.

"As I said before," L began, "I think you need to leave-"

"I saw something outside the window."

"So you can see them too? I suppose I should've known that," L said thoughtfully to himself.

"What was it?" Raito asked urgently.

"A shinigami."

"Shinigami? Aren't you a death god though?"

"Of the sort, yes."

"So this is what you meant when you said 'other worlds,' isn't it?" Raito exclaimed.

"Did I say that?" L asked with a thumb to his teeth.

"You did," said Raito.

"Mmm…" said L.

Raito took a deep breath and closed his eyes. L watched. Poor human. He looked bushed. "So what do they do, exactly?" he sighed.

L gazed sympathetically at him. Raito was exhausted. His fever had probably set in again. L explained, "Basically, Raito-san, they kill people."

Raito dug his nails into his eyelids. "I thought_ I _killed people."

The corner of L's lips quirked upward. "Yes. There's a catch."

"There's always a catch."

L grinned. He found Raito Yagami quite funny when he was tired. "Would you rather hear the details now or later? You need a rest. What's more, won't your parents suspect something if you're gone too long?"

Raito sighed. He pushed himself off the wall and unlocked the door again. He tossed the keys into the air and L caught them. He locked the door after Raito deemed it safe to walk out. Then he dropped the keys back into their drawer and said his final farewell to the useless laser pointer. He morphed through the door and followed Raito down the hall.

"I suppose I'll be staying with you then," L announced. "What are they doing to you anyway? The doctors?" His eyes twitched at the possibilities.

"Asking me questions," said Raito.

L sighed with relief. "I despise doctors," he said, voice dripping with disdain. Needles and pills and cotton balls… Raito nodded and muttered under his breath, "So do I."

They wandered through the halls and soon stopped at the door from which Raito had come. "I'm back," Raito announced, slamming the door behind him. L's lips twitched. Raito had to stop shutting the damn door in his face.

He walked through it anyway and peered at all the people in the room. A doctor was sitting in the corner by a desk and a filing cabinet. With a file folder in one hand and a ball-point pen in the other, he made himself look very busy. Raito's parents were sitting in their respective chairs and Raito sat down in the one next to them.

"You certainly took long enough," said his father.

"I got lost," shrugged Raito.

"Yes, well," the doctor made himself known, "We've established that you had a very high fever for possibly a prolonged amount of time. And that you hallucinated about a spider?"

"Person."

"Ah. Person."

"He looked like a spider, though."

"I see."

L perched on the floor next to Raito and fixed his gaze on the window. There was something lurking there, he could feel it. But why was it staying outside? Perhaps it was because L was there. Maybe it was a novice shinigami, if such a thing existed.

Or maybe it was already in the building, watching and listening.

Waiting.

L made himself comfortable. Two could play the waiting game. He wasn't about to abandon Raito and look for it, lest it decide that it wanted to take advantage Raito's unguarded status.

----

"Well!" the doctor exclaimed, "It would appear that you're doing fine." He turned to Raito's parents, who were quite visibly relieved, "No long-term brain damage that I can tell. I suggest you give him some fever reducers and let him stay in bed a while."

Raito blew a puff of air and let his head fall back against the wall. His parents would be happy now, but when they walked in on him talking to Ryuzaki again, that would be a different story. Of course, they could've paid more money to have a more accurate test done to see whether or not he was, indeed, a complete nutcase. But they wanted immediate results, and Raito quite liked it that way.

And who knew? Maybe he _was_ crazy! The idea that he was Death and that there were supernatural beings out to get him was pretty far-fetched.

He glanced down at Ryuzaki, who had his black-rimmed eyes trained on the window. Maybe the mini-death was all in his head. Maybe it was all an elaborate hoax his mind was playing on him.

Well, there was one way to find out…

Ryuzaki trotted just beside him as he stalked out the hospital doors. His eyes darted right and left, too preoccupied with locating that shinigami to notice much. He supposed that with Ryuzaki on the lookout, he was safe to pick out someone to try his wonderful new powers out on.

…

He was looking and…

He wasn't seeing. Rather, he didn't want to see. He couldn't just kill anyone he wanted right off the bat. It had to be someone who deserved to die. Some criminal…

Like one on television.

Bingo.

He'd heard his father talking that morning about a man holed up in an office building in Yokohama with about twelve hostages. He'd shot two people dead and left two others injured.

A fitting guinea pig.

When Raito got home, he announced that he wanted to watch TV on the sofa. His parents consented and Ryuzaki gave him a peculiar look. Sure, Raito couldn't talk to Ryuzaki when not in the privacy of his room, but Ryuzaki could still talk to him.

"It was following you home," the death god said. "I could see it circling the car from out the back window."

"Hmmm…" Raito breathed, wanting it to sound like he was tired. He closed his eyes and yawned. Ryuzaki went on.

"Yes, I see. I'll just talk to you then, shall I?"

Yaaaawwwwnnnn…

"Good. I don't think it wants to hurt you, Raito-san. If it did, it would've done it by now. I think it's following you. Getting close to the enemy."

Ah. Raito sighed again and turned over. He snatched the remote up in his hand and clicked the television on. The news wasn't on until later, but Raito saw no harm in watching TV anyway.

"Which is strange," Ryuzaki pressed on, "because if it wanted to track you, it could've easily done it from its own world."

For excitement then.

"I can understand that," mumbled Raito into a pillow once his parents were both out of the room.

"What was that, honey?"

Damn.

"I said I want a glass of water!" he fibbed.

"Good cover," said Ryuzaki.

Seconds later, his mom appeared in the room with a glass of water for him. And a handful of pills.

Joy.

He gulped it all down, not realizing how thirsty he was until then. Ryuzaki pinched his face together and stuck out his tongue, making a disgusted 'bleh' sound. "Thanks," Raito said. His mom smiled and returned to wherever she had been before.

"How could you swallow all those pills?" asked Ryuzaki like Raito had just swallowed a sword. He recognized it as a rhetorical question and stretched back out on the sofa.

And God, was it comfortable. He could get used to this whole 'getting a life-threatening fever and staying home from school' business. Ryuzaki was still chatting away about how grossly impractical pills were, but Raito had the TV to drown him out.

His mom came in at some point in time and asked him if he wanted anything to eat. Raito wasn't hungry though, and Ryuzaki was gazing at him like a vulture. So he sighed and said "Cookies," and the cookie-vore hummed his thanks.

His dad had gone to work. Sachiko went out not long after. To run some errands or something, then to pick Sayu up from school. And she had her cellular phone on in case he needed to contact her. Just after the car rolled out of sight, Ryuzaki wolfed down a cookie.

"Tell your sister to make more of these, Raito-san," he commanded.

"Sure," Raito grumbled with his eyes closed.

His lack of sleep was catching up to him.

With that, the Great Death pillowed his head on his arms and fell asleep.

----

L munched on a cookie. Hot damn, was it good! So chewy and sweet and doughy and chocolaty all at the same time! L's sweet tooth was in heaven. He shoveled another cookie into his mouth.

"Have you even tried one of these, Raito-san?" Ryuzaki asked, spitting bits of cookie crumbs all over the place.

No answer.

L glanced down from his spot on the arm of the sofa. "Raito-san?"

Raito was completely silent. His eyes were closed, his head was resting comfortably against his arms, his pink lips were parted slightly, and his breaths came slow and even. If L listened closely, he could hear Raito's heart beating. Easy and steady.

He was fast asleep.

L hadn't known the last Kira very well. He hadn't liked him. He was a bit of a loudmouth.

He knew someone who did, though. A friend. Who, L used to joke, was completely infatuated with him. He didn't like that very much. L knew it was true though. It was something he'd told him when he was drunk.

He used to say that the time Kira was his most magnificent was when he slept.

Ryuzaki sneezed, blinked, and then bit a king-sized hole in another cookie.

Well, that thought had certainly come from left field. He had known Raito for what, a _day_? Not even that. Besides, this Kira hadn't even proven himself useful yet. Ryuzaki knew nothing about him. He was just concerned as an acquaintance. It was friendly attention.

L never was one to become attached at first sight. Especially with humans. Raito _was _going to be the future dictator of L's realm, so he supposed he was only getting to know him. It gave him an edge over everyone else. An advantage.

Yes.

Still, as logical as sleep was, it had never crossed his mind that Kira would allow himself to become that vulnerable. Kira was supposed to be a god. An idol. Yet to see him asleep and completely unaware of everything around him made him much more…

Well…

Human.

L wasn't sure what to make of it. He regarded Raito a moment longer before deciding that the television would be a much more worthy object of his attention. Some game show or something… Anyway, it was much more lively and interesting than a sleeping Raito Yagami.

You bet.

He snatched a cookie from the rapidly emptying plate and stuffed it in his mouth. Just when L was getting the hang of said TV show, the screen blinked to commercials.

He crossed his eyes, knitted his eyebrows together, and pouted. "Bah," he said, wondering if he should change the channel. His hand hovered over the remote.

Naw. Raito had turned the television to this channel for a reason. Change it, and L would face the wrath of a grumpy, hungry, sleep-deprived Kira.

Hah. He could see it now. Devil-Raito stomping around the house, eyes glowing, infernal flames spewing from his lips. All because L changed the channel.

A painful end, L was sure.

The television blipped back to the aforementioned game show and L rejoiced. Two minutes in, and something caught his attention.

A shadow flicked across the room. L secretly looked over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of something moving from the corner of his eye. He jabbed another cookie into his mouth and acted preoccupied with the TV, all the while keeping the shadow on his radar.

He glanced back down at Raito, who was still fast asleep. Then he shifted his eyes over to the creeping darkness at the far side of the room.

It was getting closer.

Circling.

L snorted. He debated whether or not to announce the fact that he knew it was there. If it knew it had been spotted, it would leave Raito alone. On the other hand, L could keep tabs on it if it stayed.

It started to hover on its silent black wings. L noted that it looked like it had wired a dead vulture onto its back. He imagined he wasn't far from the truth.

As it got closer, L was able to get a good look at it. It had a black body, but a head that looked like it had been lopped off and replaced with a lumpy, plastic, grocery bag with dead grass sprouting from the top. Buggy eyes, even buggier than L's own, bulged from their sockets and clumsy, oversized lips puffed out from underneath what L assumed to be a very skeletal nose. His toes curled and he bit his lip to keep from gagging.

It had long, thin limbs and a bony body covered in belts and bits of black rubbish.

Hah.

L never knew he could use so many 'b's in one sentence.

All in all, it was a disgusting sight to behold.

It seemed rather dull-witted as well. It paid L absolutely no attention. Just hovered closer. Come to think of it, it didn't seem like it wanted to remain unseen any longer. It would do well to have a large, neon sign across its chest. Complete with bright green blinking arrows and text that said 'I am here.'

It also wasn't making any move to harm Raito in any way. It was just _watching. _As it got too close, L thought he'd make himself known.

"What do you want?" he spat.

It looked at him with a drawn out and generally interested "Hmmmmm?" It glanced back down at Raito, who was still completely out. "Just looking," it said as if Raito were a piece of merchandise in a department store window.

"I can hardly believe that," L said as he took a bite of another cookie.

"Really," It said calmly. It turned its bulging eyes down again. "Somebody said there was a new Kira. Had to come see for myself." He shuffled his feet and stared for another minute. "So it's true, eh? This oughta' put the spice back into life," it hummed nostalgically before turning its ugly head to L again.

"You got any apples?"

The shinigami didn't want any trouble. Where was the harm in letting him have an apple? L chewed on another cookie and pointed a disinterested finger to the kitchen. The shinigami floated into the kitchen. Seconds later, L heard a telltale crunching noise and knew that the shinigami had found what it was looking for.

"By the way," it said, poking its head back into view, "I'm Ryuk. Who're you?"

"Ryuzaki," said L.

"Hmmmmm…" droned the shinigami. It walked out of the kitchen with an armful of apples. "I guess I'll be going now," it announced, taking one last look at Raito. "Kind of a scrawny little thing, ain't he?" it said with a chunk of apple in its mouth.

"Who the _fuck_ are you calling scrawny?"

It quirked an eyebrow at him. L blinked.

He hadn't said anything.

L glanced down at the sofa to see a dangerously pissed-off Kira glaring daggers at the both of them.

----

The nerve!

Raito had been awake for a full five minutes. Ryuzaki had curled his toes rather tightly around the arm of the chair, and the folds of the couch had caught a piece of Raito's hair along with it. He had been rather rudely awakened by the resulting tug. He wanted to give Ryuzaki a piece of his mind, but he noticed just then that there were two voices in the room. So he decided to stay silent.

That last comment did it though. Raito's nerves snapped and now he was _very_ angry.

To think!

Scrawny!

Raito was the best-looking guy he knew. And what was this malnourished, ugly monster doing dissing him? He was no prize himself. Ryuk, was it? Damn stupid name too.

Raito was still tired, and through no fault of his own, he was awake. He was cranky, groggy, and he desperately wanted to ring _someone's_ neck.

Be it Ryuzaki's or Ryuk's.

The mini-death was slowly creeping away from him and the shinigami, which was by far the ugliest thing he had ever seen, was staring at him with those dumb eyes of his.

Thinking back, Raito would've been scared shitless by the way the shinigami was looking at him. Presently though, Raito could care less. All he knew was that he wanted to rip Ryuk's head off and throw it across the room.

"Where do you get off saying I'm scrawny? I'll kick your ass!" Raito spat. He grabbed onto the back of the couch and threw himself over. The shinigami stepped back.

That's right.

Raito imagined himself to be quite intimidating.

Ryuk zoomed in on Raito. He leaned in until he was right in the fuming Raito's face. "Hmmmm? You aren't afraid of me?" he asked stupidly.

"Like hell," growled Raito.

He leaned in even closer. "You're interesting," he said.

"I think it's about time you left," said Ryuzaki disdainfully. Ryuk's gigantic fish-eyes rolled over to the side, then back. "I suppose so," he said, blowing a puff of stale air into Raito's face. He backed off, crunched on another apple, and walked away. "Later," he said with a wave.

Both Ryuzaki and Raito watched him go. Soon, the room was filled with nothing but the sound of laughter on the television. Good. The damn thing was gone. Now if he could only find a way to get back to sleep!

"I must admit, Raito-san, I'm surprised."

Raito glowered in Ryuzaki's general direction. The mini-death munched his last cookie and curled his toes around the arm of the sofa. "Judging from your reaction to me, you should've acted slightly more alarmed and less confident about that shinigami." He habitually chewed on his thumb and gazed off into the distance.

Did Raito give a shit what Ryuzaki thought?

No.

"You woke me up," he said.

Ryuzaki gave him a peculiar look. "Did I?"

"Yes," hissed Raito.

"Ah," Ryuzaki nodded, "Forgive me, Raito-san."

"You pulled my hair with those damn toes of yours."

"Again, Raito-san, I apologize. I was unaware that-"

"You woke me up."

"Yes, I see. Now if you'd let me explain-"

"You pulled my hair."

"Yes, Raito-san."

"You woke me up."

Ryuzaki rolled his eyes skyward and sighed. Through with talking, Raito grumbled and re-positioned himself on the couch. God, he was so tired. It was awfully cold though. He needed a blanket.

Well wasn't that dandy? The mighty Death needed a blankie. Dear God.

Raito sighed and hefted himself off of the couch again. He stomped up the stairs to his room, very aware that a pair of black-rimmed eyes were following his every move. He shut his door behind him and rummaged around for a blanket. He ended up taking one off of his bed and carrying a pillow down with it.

He blew straight past a cookie-less Ryuzaki, tossed the pillow on the couch, and then fell into the cushions. He tucked the blanket around himself and buried half of his face in it.

He lay there for a minute, and then Raito's worst nightmare happened.

He started to think.

That shinigami, Ryuk. What had been his true motive for following him around all day? Did he have a motive at all? Raito had caught the part of the conversation between Ryuk and Ryuzaki in which the shinigami explained that he was there to 'see for himself.'

Raito didn't know exactly what he meant, but he filed the shinigami's name and hideous face away for further reference.

He became aware of a sudden shuffling about outside of his comfortable cocoon. He peeked out to find that L had since moved from his spot at the arm of the sofa near Raito's head. He was now on the other end of the sofa, perched on the opposite arm and staring into nothing.

Raito sighed and ducked under the blanket again. Ryuzaki was trying to avoid accidentally pulling his hair a second time.

How considerate.

The time in which Sayu and Raito's mother were coming home was drawing closer. Raito knew that if he channel-surfed long enough, he would be able to find a channel that played nothing but news, but if all this nonsense really wasn't in his head, he wanted his family there to confirm it.

_If a tree falls in the middle of a forest, and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?_

Something along those lines.

If the criminal was the tree, and Raito was the forest, and that tree fell when he was alone with nothing but his imagination, Raito had no immediate proof that he wasn't making it all up.

Of course, he could have made his parents up too, but… Well. He had to have some way to tell whether or not he was imagining things. He could ask for favors right and left. Like food. There was _nothing_ more real than food.

Cookies.

Sure, they would spoil his appetite, but he wasn't going to be the one eating them. Well, maybe one or two. Just to prove that they were real and he wasn't seeing things. Then, when he was sure of himself, he'd kill the bastard in the office building.

Raito heard the sound of a key being twisted around a lock. Then he heard the squeaking of a door being pushed forcefully open. Not long after came the cheerful cry of, "Raito-kun! We're home! Hope you're still alive!"

Ah, Sayu and her sense of humor.

"She's worried about you," remarked Ryuzaki, who was still occupying the far end of the couch. Raito rolled his eyes.

Just then, Sayu swung around that end of the couch and pounced on him.

Which was odd.

She didn't pay any attention to Ryuzaki at all.

But… Raito thought…

"She can't see me either," Ryuzaki informed him. "You are the only human who can."

So, last night, when she asked him what was in the chair, it was just…

A rhetorical question?

God damn!

Raito groaned, shoved his fingers into his eyes, and rolled over in agony. He felt the beginnings of an elephant-sized migraine coming on. Sayu scurried off of the couch. "Raito, are you okay? I'm sorry!"

Sachiko, who had been in mother-hen mode all morning, flew to Raito's aid. "What's wrong?" she asked urgently. Raito grumbled and massaged his temples. "Just a headache," he said.

Much to Raito's dismay, she looked horrified. "Raito, have you gotten yourself a glass of water since I left?" she stammered.

Ugh. That was right. He could have gotten a headache from not drinking enough water. _Could _have. That wasn't the reason he had one, but it would make his mom happy since she could cure it. What was more, if she gave him a nice, refreshing glass of water, Raito could prove her real. "No, I haven't," Raito admitted.

"I'll be right back," she huffed. Then she raced into the kitchen and raced back out with the promised glass of water. Raito took it from her. The glass was nice and cold, and when he drank it, the cool water running down his throat definitely felt real enough.

Now for Sayu. She had already fallen onto him earlier and knocked the wind out of him, but a little verification wouldn't hurt. "Could you get me some more of those cookies you made, Sayu?" he asked politely.

Ryuzaki perked up instantly and gazed at Raito's little sister like she had just turned into a giant, pink, glazed doughnut. Sayu smiled. "Sure!" she said, "Do you really like my cookies that much? Are they that good?"

Ryuzaki nodded his head feverishly.

"Yeah," said Raito, "They're pretty good."

Sayu beamed at him and scampered into the kitchen. She came back with a plastic bowl full of cookies.

He glanced at Ryuzaki, who was practically _raping_ the poor, innocent bowl of sweets with his eyes. "Here!" squeaked Sayu as she shoved the bowl under Raito's nose. Raito picked one out, the one with the least chocolate sprinkles, and bit a chunk out of it.

Hmmm… Tasted like a cookie. Felt like a cookie. Smelled like a cookie. Looked like a cookie. And judging by the way Ryuzaki was squealing at the other side of the couch, it sounded like a cookie too. Just the way he remembered before last night. The same cookies that Sayu always made.

Raito took another satisfied bite out of the cookie and finished it off.

"Save me some!" commanded Ryuzaki.

Raito ignored him. A live news bulletin had interrupted the rather bland TV show he wasn't watching. Huh. What news report could have been important enough to 'interrupt his scheduled programming?' The Yokohama hostage thing? Maybe he'd get lucky.

An interesting change.

"We're sorry to interrupt your-" blah, blah, blah! Raito wanted them to get to the point! Was this or wasn't this an important announcement about the Yokohama hostage case?

"Impatient, aren't you?" droned Ryuzaki.

"Ooh! I wonder if they caught that guy yet!" Said Sayu excitedly.

Raito listened very carefully. The man had shot two more of his hostages as a demonstration to the police, then had shot and killed three policemen while he was at it. As an additional threat, he added that he'd planted bombs all around the building and had the detonator in his hand. The emergency report had been to warn civilians to stay away from the area. How disgusting. He had to go.

"Just snap your fingers, Raito-san," the mini-death hummed, "The world's watching."

Raito waited.

"That's horrible!" screeched Sayu, "how could he do such a thing? I don't think I can watch anymore!" she stormed out of the room and to her mom, who she harped to about all the injustice in the world.

Perfect.

He was all alone, and the television had cut to a live broadcast from the scene of the crime. Raito was all set. As the reporter was talking, a picture of the killer popped up on the screen.

He could see Ryuzaki out of the corner of his eye, nibbling on his thumb in anticipation. Let him watch. Raito was Kira. It was his right to kill whoever he deemed despicable. This man had killed seven innocent people. He deserved to die. Raito was very capable of making that happen.

He was Death.

The destroyer of worlds.

He glared at the picture on the screen, mustered up all the hatred he had for this man, and then snapped.

The reporter continued talking, the camera continued rolling, and life went on as usual.

Nothing happened.

Discouraged, Raito sank back in his seat. Had he done something wrong? He knew there was something more to it. Damn Ryuzaki didn't tell him everything! He shut his eyes tightly and hissed. Sayu came padding back into the room, saying something about how bad people could be.

"A sad, sad day for us all," lamented the anchorman, "If nothing is done to stop him, the killing will go on. Now back to… what? What is it!?" Raito's eyes opened with a snap. He shot up in the couch, making Sayu jump.

The man on the screen was talking urgently into his headset and someone else was handing him more papers.

"It would appear that the hostages are coming out of the building! Yes, they are leaving the building!"

Could it be?

The reporter was back, blabbering into his microphone. The screen jumped all over the place as the cameraman ran to keep up with him. Sure enough, Raito caught a glimpse of six very frightened hostages scurrying out of the glass doors of the office building.

"The police have not shot him! The have not shot him! The escapees are saying that he just dropped dead! This is amazing!"

Amazing…

"And the great Kira claims his first victim," mused Ryuzaki.

Ryuzaki was right. The great Kira. Raito Yagami. He had always wanted to be influential. To change the world. That was why, until just then, he had thought of a job in law enforcement. His father always said that his sense of justice would make him a fine lawyer. Or a detective or something.

But this was power. Power to punish the unjust with just a snap of the fingers.

He stared emptily at the television. The police had confirmed that the detonator he waved at them earlier was a controller for a military simulation computer game he had stolen from an office, not a detonation device.

And that he was stone cold dead.

Raito's right hand began to shake. A coincidence? No. No, that was impossible. He had done just as Ryuzaki said, and the criminal on the television had died.

This wasn't just power over law.

This was power over _life_.

----

Chibi Misa: And the plot thickens!

Me: Yay plot! I love plots!

Chibi Raito: I love me!

Chibi L: I love me too!

Me: Aww, thanks guys! You make me feel special!

Chibi Raito: You're really dumb, you know that?

Chibi L: Liek Omg srsly.

Chibi Misa: Rotflol!!!

Me: Yeah. Anyway, like? Don't like? Review!

Chibi L: For c00kies!

Chibi Misa: And it's true that authors only know so much. If you find something horribly, terribly WRONG, tell Swirly. She only knows so much about Japanese culture.

Me: Despite the fact that I read about it in manga all the time.

Chibi Misa: Yeah. She's just your typical dumb American. Sit back, type a sentence or two, and have a cookie.

Chibi L: I like a cookie…

Chibi Misa: Review, review, review!


	3. To Hell on a Rocketsled

**DS**

**Disclaimer:** Frank Zappa's goatee owns all.

Me: Homigawd. I love you guys.

Chibi L: Me?

Chibi Raito: Why?

Chibi Misa: Yeah, why?

Me: Because you get me reviewers coming out of my ears.

Chibi L: Right.

Me: Thanks! All you reviewers make my day. Please, continue to make my day, even though I won't be updating as often as I should. I'll try, I promise, but I have another fanfic, a guitar to play, and drawings to draw.

Chibi Misa: Yeah! She loves you! But… she just really wants a Gretsch White Falcon. And her parents will only let her get one if she learns how to play.

Me: Rawr.

Chibi Raito: So stick with us.

Chibi L: It's not like you to say something like that, Raito-san.

Chibi Raito: I know.

Chibi L: It's…

Chibi Raito: Weird.

Chibi Misa: Yay! Another chapter for you to read! Read, review, and relax.

**D S 3**

Raito was still uneasy. He hadn't killed another person in two weeks. L found it very amusing. He'd put on quite a show of confidence when he killed his first criminal.

But saying and doing were two different things.

As Raito Yagami had found out.

Through many glasses of water, pills, and bags of ice, Raito had gotten rid of his fever and the shinigami hadn't visited him since. That was decidedly good.

He was currently sitting in his desk, twirling his pencil in one hand and resting his chin in the other. Raito Yagami, ace student that Ryuzaki had found out, had completely spaced during class.

"Yagami-san, could you translate that last line?" Raito blinked and nearly dropped his pencil. It was a slight movement though. Ryuzaki was almost sure he was the only one who saw. Kira instantly regained his composure. He stood up, thumbed through a few pages in his book, cleared his throat, and delivered a philosophical speech in English with a perfect accent.

"Impressive," said L once Raito had sat back down. "Your English is almost as good as mine."

Raito gave him a sidelong glare.

L absorbed it like it was nothing, then concluded that he'd walk around the room in a circle three times because he was bored. He stretched his arms, yawned, then began his relentless march. He glanced at Raito every once in a while to find that he was following him with his eyes.

How strange.

"I find this classroom to be quite boring," L said, "Your teacher has no taste in interior decoration."

Raito coughed.

"Something wrong, Yagami-kun?" said the crinkle-eyed teacher.

Raito apologized, and then said that no, there wasn't.

Class went on as usual, much to Ryuzaki's displeasure. He had half a mind to accidentally bump into the stack of books that the teacher had so meticulously put together. Who knew, maybe he could start a ghost rumor and have Raito spread it around.

No.

He'd have to have a girl do that. It was very un-Raito.

Hmm…

It wasn't like L to be this rash, but with no intellectual stimulation, he was getting desperate. "Raito-san, I'll have you know that I am extremely bored." He announced. "If nothing happens soon, I will not be held responsible for the massive amount of objects that will suddenly appear all over the floor."

Raito folded his arms and rested his head on the desk. "There are cookies in the cafeteria." He whispered into his sleeve.

Ryuzaki stuck his thumb between his lips and chewed. "But if I leave you here alone, the probability that something will happen to you rises to seventy percent."

Raito turned to face him. He gave L a very peculiar look as if to say 'And you care because..?'

"It would be quite a tragedy if you were to die young, Raito-san," explained L with one pointer finger extended.

Raito turned his face the other way and breathed a deep sigh through his nose. So he wasn't going to pay any attention to him, eh? L narrowed his eyes, huffed at him, and stalked away to lurk in a corner.

Six minutes and twenty one seconds later, a book had mysteriously fallen off the shelf and every time a breeze blew through the window, a single page would turn. The wind had blown a total of one hundred seventy four times.

Hey. There was a storm outside.

Class was over. And, in what seemed like an eternity, school was over.

There were five books on the floor. A Good Samaritan offered to pick them up, but they would only mysteriously fall back onto the floor again. Someone made a comment about how freaky it was, and sooner than L had expected, he heard rumors everywhere that Raito's classroom was haunted.

"Actually, I find it quite fascinating," said L as he padded along in Raito's shadow. The brunette turned to face him. "Well I don't," he grouched, "That was especially immature of you."

"Ah, perhaps. I warned you though."

"And what was I supposed to do about it? Sing?"

"You can sing?"

"I was joking."

"Oh," said L, quite disheartened, "Can you dance?"

"We're getting off topic here."

"Quite," said L.

An overly dressed woman and her Pomeranian walked by. She raised an overdone forest of eyelashes at Raito and her dog started barking like crazy. L drew his upper lip into a snarl. He hated dogs.

"Maybe you should stop talking to me, Raito," remarked L, "You'll attract attention."

Raito quirked an eyebrow at him. "Who's talking to who?"

The lady who had just walked past was eyeing them again. Well, Raito anyway. She couldn't see L. She and her yipping hairball waddled over to a policeman on the corner and she started whispering in his ear. "Yes, you should definitely stop talking," L concluded. Then he added in a whisper, "Walk faster!"

----

Raito Yagami speed-walked home, speed-climbed up the stairs after speed-talking to his mom, and then speed-fell into his bed and plummeted into a very un-relaxing speed-sleep.

He was still angry at Ryuzaki for his puerile actions concerning the books and ghost legends and whatnot. Thus, he didn't bother talking to him or giving him any cookies. Just hit his mattress and fell stone dead asleep. He was already on edge as it was. What, with the sudden ability to kill _everyone_ and all.

He had to think of a battle plan. A plan, dammit! He, Raito Yagami, had the past two weeks to think of one.

And he had done nothing.

Absolutely nothing!

Raito needed a plan. He _always_ had a plan! Studying for college entrance exams and trying to figure out what the fuck was happening to him at the same time was proving to be a fatal error.

Hah… Fatal.

Even his humor had gone to hell.

Gone to hell… hah, hah…

Oh God. Much more of this and Raito was going to crack. Crack… hah. Why was that funny again? It was at this point in time that Raito realized that he was asleep. He would never find something like that funny. He was dreaming. And he was having a half-logical, totally relevant dream on top of that!

He needed to let loose. Maybe he could sneak out of the house and go downtown. Find himself a lonely girl. Or maybe he could call one of the infinitely many who had left him their phone number. Yeah. That's what he needed.

Boy, Raito could really use some-

"Dinner!!!"

Damn.

That wasn't quite as good. But Raito hadn't eaten all day. He was starving. He sighed, rolled over and blinked the sleep out of his eyes. The first thing he saw was what looked like a huge, black and white bull's-eye that flashed once. The first thing he said was "Ryuzaki, you have to stop doing that."

Ryuzaki's monochrome eye drew down at one corner, then he snorted at Raito and his face vanished from view. Raito groaned. He'd woken up to a similar sight on Monday, and it had nearly scared the shit out of him.

Nearly.

Raito had opted to express his sudden surprise by trying and failing to reflexively smack Ryuzaki right in the face. He made contact with nothing and Ryuzaki blinked at him and then phased through the mattress and into the floor.

The same thing had just happened. He noticed Ryuzaki, and as a result, the mini-death had melted into the bedsheets and disappeared.

Honestly. Raito had no idea what was wrong with him.

As Raito picked at his dinner, his father made several comments about how strange the end of the Yokohama case had been. He said that the culprit died of cardiac arrest, cause unknown.

Interesting.

"Raito."

"Yeah," Raito responded distantly.

His father finished chewing on a dumpling, then said, "Matsuda says he's glad you're better."

"Tell him thanks," said Raito, who had taken a sudden interest in a grain of steamed rice.

"You seem kinda' out of it, Raito," commented Sayu.

"The college entrance exam is soon. I've been studying, so yeah. I'm kind of tired," Raito lied skillfully. Then he heard a dish crash into the sink, followed by some swearing and scampering across the kitchen floor.

"I wonder what that was," Raito's mother commented before leaving her food to investigate the kitchen. Not long after, he saw the form of Ryuzaki slinking around the wall with a cookie jammed in his mouth and another five or ten stuffed down his shirt and in his pockets. He crept up the stairs and tried to go through the bedroom door, but The cookies he had packed away refused to go through.

"Shit," muttered Ryuzaki. "Raito-san! Open the door!"

As payment for the creative torture Ryuzaki had put him through earlier in the day, he stabbed another dumpling on one chopstick and stuck it in his mouth to show him how much he really didn't care. "Raito-san!" Ryuzaki whined, "I'll have to eat these here then!"

Was that his attempt at a threat? Raito let him complain.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as Ryuzaki visibly deflated and crunched on the cookie he had in his mouth. Raito, knowing he had won, righteously speared another dumpling just for the heck of it.

"I think I'll go back up to my room and study," Raito announced two dumplings later. (He was full up after the third dumpling, but he was gloating. That entitled him to another one.) Raito's mother waved at him before he swung the door open. Ryuzaki, who had limited himself to only the cookie he had just eaten, slithered into the room, hopped on his chair, and stuffed two in his mouth at the same time.

"That was cruel, Yagami-san," Ryuzaki mentioned coldly around the two gooey, chocolate-sprinkled cookies.

"Yes," said Raito as-a-matter-of-factly. "That's part of my job, isn't it?"

"No."

"Really?"

"Just because you're Death doesn't mean you have to be cold about it," Ryuzaki munched.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Raito reprimanded.

"Why not?"

"It's disgusting and childish."

"You're not the bossa' me," said Ryuzaki.

----

L felt something he had never felt in his life. When he didn't eat a cookie in a long time, he had agonizing withdrawals. A sharp, smoldering, burning pain in the pit of his stomach.

Hunger.

And it was scaring the crap out of him.

Did this mean that he's eaten too much human food? Bad things happened when a member of the psychopomp race ate a lot. He'd read about it in books. Of course, he'd given up reading those books at first. They had microscopic print, no pictures, cheap newsprint pages, broken bindings from the moment of purchase (seriously, the very second after he bought one, its spine snapped in half. It looked so great on the shelf, too!), and were far too large to be about the single subject stamped into the cover.

And the shopkeeper who sold it to L would smile.

Just because he liked to watch young, unsuspecting readers tear their own heads off in torment.

As time passed and L had nothing else to read, he picked up _One Thousand and One Things not to do in the Human Realm,_ and the rest was history.

He had been the first one to read it all, cover to cover.

The _One Thousand and One Things_ stated clearly that the worst of all human cuisine was the sweets category. Particularly baked confections, and chocolate was especially deadly.

Deadly, you ask?

Well, through eating too much food too fast, a psychopomp could easily become an object of the human realm and thus become mortal. L didn't know exactly how it worked, but it had something to do with too much nutrients in his system, forsaking his own realm, sugar content, and the kitchen sink.

He couldn't help but find his tasteless realm a bit inferior to the awesome power of the homemade deluxe triple-chocolate sprinkle cookie.

L did not have any desire to die just then.

Nor did he want to experience any of the strange side effects associated with the consumption of human food. One would become attached to a food. Then, he would have stomach aches until he ate it, much like L had now. In advanced cases, he would have mad seizures. A recorded interview with one unfortunate individual described in detail the horrid effects of addiction. He would fantasize about pink, plastic, garden flamingoes wearing top hats, canes and dress shoes and who only sang and danced to Frank Zappa songs.

Suddenly, one of the cookies sprouted a panda's head and chanted "eat us."

It was at that time that L unloaded all of the cookies he had hidden away. He placed them on Raito's desk and pushed the pile as far away from him as he could. Then he got off of the chair to assess the mess he had made. Crumbs were everywhere. He sighed through his nose, fell to the wooden floor, and sat there.

"Eat us."

He plugged his ears.

"What's wrong?" said Raito, who had taken a break from his relentless studying to care. L frowned deeply. "They want me to eat them."

"Who?" Raito asked incredulously.

"Eat us!"

"The cookies," said a defeated L.

"Ryuzaki, do you seriously think a cookie can talk?"

"Eeeeaaaattt uuuuussssssss…"

"Well, yes and no," explained L, "It goes against all logic, seeing that cookies have no nervous system, muscles, lungs, or vocal cords to speak of. Yet I can definitely hear them."

"It's all in your head," said Raito.

"EEEAAATTT UUUSSSSS!"

"Yes, perhaps," nodded L, "but your parents can't see me or hear me, yet you know I'm here. That is illogical."

"Not in the same way that a singing cookie is illogical."

As if on cue, a chorus rose amongst the baked goods that went something like this: "Creamy filling, creamy filling in a chocolate Oreo…"

"You just had to make them sing," lamented L.

Raito groaned, rolled his eyes, and then hit his face with the text book and left it there. He took that to be a sign of frustration. L tilted his head at him, the Oreo music fading to mere background noise. What a peculiar human Raito was.

"I need to kill something," breathed Raito.

"Well then what are you waiting for?" goaded L, "You have a television up here, do you not?"

Raito eyed him suspiciously before hefting himself to his feet. "I suppose," he groaned. "After all, I don't leave any sort of evidence."

Not quite.

He pressed the red button on his remote and the television crackled to life. He went straight to the news channel. L scampered off of the seat when Raito coughed at him.

The cookies had since stopped singing.

So L ate them all.

You know, just to prevent their singing later.

----

Ryuzaki was right.

If he wanted to kill something, he'd kill something. After all, there was no evidence he could leave behind. He could be miles away when it happened. No records, no DNA, no weapons, no nothing. Just Raito and his mind.

With complete control.

He watched as the face of a serial killer flashed on the screen. Raito breathed a shaky sigh and snapped his fingers. It didn't feel _too_ bad… Minutes later, a story about a convicted rapist revealed itself. Once again, Raito snapped his fingers. He began to think of how boring and repetitive it was and the initial shock numbed somewhat. It was just too easy.

On the other hand…

All of these criminals were dying of heart attacks from an unknown cause. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later that something was going on. A pattern. They'd realize that a higher power was passing judgment on such criminals.

Yes…

Yes!

A god!

The God of Death!

Grim feelings about his job completely reversed, he rose from his chair and thundered down to the kitchen, where he asked his sister for all of the newspapers between now and last week. She brought him to a cardboard box in a closet and asked him why he needed them.

For studying purposes.

He hauled them back up to the room, set them on the desk with a papery clash, and then searched through them while he listened in on the television. This was brilliant. Raito was brilliant.

This was what dreams were made of. Raito's dreams, anyhow. A bit morbid, but nevertheless, he could ask for nothing more.

With his right hand, he would justify humanity and banish crime from the face of the Earth. He would create a Utopia for all mankind.

He had snapped a total of twelve times before Ryuzaki spoke up. "You're in quite a hurry, Raito-san," he said mischievously.

"I only have so much time," Raito cackle-whispered, "I still have to study, get enough sleep to keep my grades up in school…" He paused, breathed a triumphant laugh, and stared at his right hand as it literally shook with excitement. "Ryuzaki, do you understand how _incredible_ this is?"

"I thought you might say that," Ryuzaki growled.

Raito wasn't listening.

Every time he snapped his fingers…

Boom!

Someone's soul was ripped out of his or her body.

Dead.

Dead!

Well, he had no immediate proof, but he'd see soon enough. The world would see soon enough! Twelve people within an hour, all dying of unexpected, unexplainable heart attacks. Now _this_ would make it on the news.

This sudden resolution to punish the world came to Raito the minute he heard that the Yokohama terrorist died, but… well… he never thought it would be this _easy_. He kept thinking about how difficult and planned out it would have to be. He always had a nasty habit of thinking too much.

It was incredibly easy.

Impossibly easy.

In a snap, quite literally, Raito had found his plan.

----

Well, wasn't this nice. Kira was a psychopathic, bi-polar, homicidal, hormonally challenged, teen-aged maniac with a God complex. L found it disturbing, and at the same time he found it exciting. There was something electric about sitting in the chair next to a serial killer.

As L was now.

Raito had gone to school, just like any other day. Only, now there was something more sinister hanging in the air around him. An oppressive and moody atmosphere crackling with a sinister, dark tension. Raito was a self-contained, mini-thunderstorm.

L thought it best not to bother him. Chances were, he was thinking about something he deemed important, and if L interfered, pain and humiliation would follow. Not just for him, but for Raito as well. He'd probably start yelling at and arguing with nothing. Upon which, he would be sent to the psychiatrists and the doctor's for good measure.

And some other unpleasant things were bound to happen.

L didn't bother racking his mind to discover them. Though, thinking up scenarios would definitely keep him busy. The school day was almost over, but L could no longer contain himself. Every day, at about this time, L would lose all interest in school curriculum and become marginally destructive.

He melted into the floor and popped back up near the bookcase, where he pulled a pre-loosened book out by its binding. The second it hit the floor, umpteen pairs of eyes were suddenly trained on that little, insignificant bundle of paper.

Expecting it to move.

L was feeling especially irritable, so he humored them. A page turned.

"Oh my gawd! Did you see that?"

"Holy shit! It moved!"

The reaction was predictable. Considering that everything concerning himself had been hectic lately, L appreciated the predictability. The teacher tried and failed to recapture the class's attention. Someone dared to creep over and turn the page back.

L found this quite entertaining. Even more so than his book. Now, it was not in L's nature to create mischief. However, his time on Earth had left no room for order. Order would bore him to death. Besides, he was hurting no one. He was the friendly neighborhood ghost.

That said, L befuddled the crowd by immediately flipping the page back. A collective gasp rose in the room. "Don't make it mad!" an anonymous girl yelled.

Another guy replaced the previous dweeb as the official poker and prodder of all things supernatural. In a daring move, he swept the book up in his hand. This was an interesting change. In no time, yet another book had fallen from the shelf.

Face up and open to page one.

"EEEK!"

L bit his thumb to keep himself from laughing. But where was the harm in laughter? They couldn't hear him. Only Raito could, and he seemed uninterested with anything but himself.

So he laughed a little.

Raito looked over his shoulder for a brief moment before rolling his eyes and turning back to his work.

L made a face at him.

"I think it's the ghost of that manic depressive librarian!"

A chorus of squealing.

It was at that point when L decided that he should stop before things got out of hand. He left the book where it was. "Raito-san," he announced, "I apologize."

Raito disinterestedly inclined his head.

And L knew that would have to be enough. He mulled about the room, once again noting the room's particularly deplorable décor. "I hate this room," said L for the ninth time that week.

Raito rested his head in one hand and gave him a look that clearly said, 'Come here, Ryuzaki, and let me strangle you to death.'

L blinked once or twice, then decided that he'd go take a look out the window and say nothing else for the rest of the day.

That was until, while he was admiring the lack of scenery, he saw something ugly, gangly, and feathery floating about against the sky. He instantly recognized it as the shinigami who had paid himself and Raito a visit that one afternoon. Seeing it again was somewhat unnerving. Why was it persisting in following Raito?

L glanced at the seething juvenile in question, whose smoldering glare tracked the shadow across the sky.

Good.

So Raito saw.

L glanced at the clock. "We have two minutes, then we're free," he stated. Raito sighed and continued watching the shinigami through his fingers.

The bell rang, and L had since lost sight of the grimy, vulture-esque thing. Raito yawned, looked generally bored, and then organized all of his books into his backpack before heading for the door. L followed close behind, scanning either side of the hall for any sign of the shinigami.

"Why me?" asked Raito when they were a sufficient distance from school.

Funny. L often thought the same thing. He glanced back over at the Yagami to see his brown eyes gazing indifferently back at him. L's mind registered that he wanted an answer.

"I know as much as you do," L mused to himself.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Raito roared, smacking himself on the side of the head for emphasis. This greatly alarmed L, who had heard of such acts of self-abuse, but had never partaken in one as he thought they were quite silly and made no sense.

"Raito-san!" L yelled in dismay. Said boy tossed L an exceptionally threatening scowl, which L caught and threw back before Raito's superiority complex could get to home base. L noted how surprisingly fast it ran.

Sufficiently and honorably defeated, Raito whipped his head back around, stuck his nose in the air, hissed, and bonked himself on the head again. "Raito-san!" lamented L, who felt like his skull was beginning to channel the damage, "stop doing that!"

"Why?" the brunette asked stubbornly.

"Why not?" argued L, "What good does it accomplish? I see no reason to needlessly hurt yourself."

Raito blinked his long, black eyelashes inquisitively at him. Then a smug, knowing smile spread on his lips. "Oh, Ryuzaki," he purred sumptuously, "I never knew you cared."

"No," said L flatly, "you're giving me a headache."

Raito's eyes widened and he gawked at L as if he had grown another head. He then turned around again and continued walking. It took him a while to regain his composure, which L found to be more like the Raito he first met.

Less like Kira.

And that was decidedly good.

----

Damn.

Just damn.

Ryuzaki had no idea how humiliating that was. Raito stalked home, stalked up to his room without saying a word to Sayu, and then stalked over to his desk and exploded in a fit of rage. He threw his favorite mechanical pencil at the wall, making it stick. Seconds later, it was joined by a blue erasable pen, a black ballpoint pen, another erasable pen, a click eraser (he'd seen Ryuzaki hide behind the closet door when that stuck), and twenty or so graphite smudges from brittle number two pencils.

He breathed in, and breathed out. Inhale, exhale.

Calm.

He needed to stay calm.

Raito was in control.

He was perfectly capable of getting back at the death god for that, but it wasn't his priority at the moment. He had criminals to punish. So much to do, so little time. He disregarded the mini-death completely and turned on the TV.

Within two minutes, his first criminal was toast.

Four minutes, the second one was just as well off.

It continued that way for quite a while. Snap snap snap.

Raito noticed with some degree of horror that it was getting boring. He was Death! This was his job! It was _not_ supposed to be boring. He was killing people all by himself. That was exciting, was it not?

Of course it was.

Yet, Raito had no way of forcing himself to be un-bored. Gradually, his ears began to pick up a noise in the room.

He recognized the shuffling in the back of the room as Ryuzaki trying to keep himself busy. "What are you doing?" Raito growled as he used his foot to push himself about-face on the office chair. What he saw nearly made him jump.

Ryuzaki was posing in front of his mirror with a pair of Raito's good jeans tied around his waist, a pullover over his loose, white sweater, and a pair of boxers on top of his head.

Boxers.

On his head.

"You know you have everything on wrong, don't you?" Raito pointed out.

"Yes," brooded the mini-death with a thumb in his teeth, looking deeply thoughtful. "Why do you wear all this anyway?"

Raito sighed, "It's indecent to go out in public with nothing on. Need I remind you that you have clothes too?"

"No," said Ryuzaki, "But you don't have to have this many clothes." He gestured to Raito's Closet-O-Clothes with a great sweep of the arm.

The brunette's eye twitched. Ryuzaki was a complete dumbass. "You look ridiculous," he said as if that explained everything.

"Perhaps," said the boy with the underwear on his head.

Raito stared. It seemed to him that his point wasn't quite driven home. "You look like an idiot," he added for emphasis.

"Yes," said Ryuzaki.

"Why?"

"I find it much more fun this way."

And the hot, suffocating, thick air in the room rushed out just like that. It was amazing how fast an undergarment worn on the head could calm an uncomfortable atmosphere. To his surprise, Raito breathed another deep, refreshing breath in he didn't know how long. He wondered if, during that half an hour, he'd breathed at all.

Ryuzaki gingerly picked the thing off of his head and tossed it somewhere. He peeled the pullover away from his sweater and untied the jeans around his waist. He shook himself like a wet dog and then proceeded to crawl into and inspect Raito's bed sheets.

Raito rolled his eyes and turned off the television. The mini-death resurfaced and cocked his head. "Done already?" he asked inquisitively. Raito sighed and spun himself wearily on his chair. "There are only so many criminals on television in one night."

Ryuzaki slithered through the blankets and emerged on the other side of the bed. "That never stopped you yesterday. Or the day before that, or the day before that for that matter. Come to think of it, it hasn't bothered you at all until now."

Raito seriously wanted to smack him one.

"I'm taking a break," he announced in a tone that would hint to anyone else that he would say no more on the matter.

Anyone else.

"That's awfully unusual, Raito-san," Ryuzaki pointed out.

"Do you have a problem with it?" Raito asked coldly with his arms across his chest.

"Not at all," said Ryuzaki, blinking his murky eyes and withdrawing once again into the sheets.

Raito began to wonder what he was doing. He asked. Ryuzaki appeared again, popping out from the footboard like a warped and deranged bas relief sculpture. "I find it strange, how you humans can sleep underneath these for so long. They restrict movement and are generally impractical, are they not?"

"First of all, Ryuzaki," announced Raito irately, "People don't normally want to move in their sleep. Second of all, blankets keep me from freezing to death."

Ryuzaki's eyes widened. "Ah," he muttered, "I see. Keep your blankets." He melted into the floor and popped back up at the foot of the bed. "Though I disagree about the moving part."

Raito raised an eyebrow. "How so?" he questioned.

"You move a lot in your sleep."

Raito paled.

"And you talk, too," the incarnate of Satan added with a waggle of the finger. The Yagami didn't want to know the details. What he didn't know couldn't hurt him in this case. But he was curious in a horrified, dreadful sort of way.

"What did I say?" he asked suspiciously, narrowing one eye at Ryuzaki. The psychopomp's panda eyes glittered at him.

That eavesdropping little fuckstick.

"Oh, just killing people," Panda-Boy said innocently. Raito eyed him. Suspicious, wasn't he? Ryuzaki asked him what he was getting so defensive about. Raito growled to himself and told him that it was nothing.

Nothing at all.

He could tell that Ryuzaki didn't believe him. And that was fine and good. At least he didn't say anything else about it.

Raito leaned back in his chair and spun it around. He stared at the uneven dots on his ceiling until they wore perfect circles into his eyes.

He heard more shuffling and wondered if Ryuzaki was still fooling around. Honestly, Raito had no idea why he did it. If he was as old as his knowledge of encyclopedias suggested, he probably had enough time to observe the human race. If not through personal experience, then by the books he read.

But Ryuzaki knew nothing.

Maybe he just wasn't all that interested in what the human world had to offer. Since he was trapped here, Raito figured, he wanted to learn as much as he could about humans. Maybe to prevent future misunderstandings.

Raito sighed and let the dots on the ceiling wear fluorescent circles into his retinas.

He was called down for dinner a while later. He left his television, the dots, and Ryuzaki and headed downstairs.

"I'm going to tell you all straight away," his father announced over the aroma of chicken and fried rice, "I might not be home for a few days at a time."

Raito was very proud of himself. He knew why his father would be gone, but that didn't stop him from pretending to care. "Why?" he asked angrily along with Sayu. Soichiro glanced down at his son and daughter and sighed. "Some pretty strange things have been happening lately. Sit down."

And they did.

"Now, you've both heard about all the criminals suddenly dropping dead, right?" Sayu and Raito both nodded slowly. "Well," sweated their father, "I've decided to work double-time. The Japanese Police Force and I believe that these cases are linked in some way, possibly to a group of people or an organization. There are simply too many people who died of a common cause for all this to be a strange coincidence. So far, all of the victims have been Japanese criminals. We're investigating before this can escalate into a global affair."

Raito gave his father an appraising look through the vanishing rings in his eyes and nodded thoughtfully. So they were trying to figure him out, were they? Even his own father. He couldn't allow this to distract him. What could the police do to him anyway?

Raito was a god.

Let them try to defy him.

"I hope you catch whoever it is really soon!" pouted Sayu.

"Yeah," concurred Raito.

His father nodded tiredly, "I hope we do too."

And the rest of dinner was eaten in silence, except for the occasional complaint of Sachiko, who thought that it was incredibly unfair that her husband be taken away from her. Soichiro comforted her and eventually she accepted it.

"I'm going back upstairs to study," Raito announced. On his way up to his room, he peeked over the banister and said, "Hey dad?"

Soichiro looked wearily up at him.

"Take care of yourself," said Raito.

"Thanks, Raito. I will."

And Raito smiled pleasantly, thinking to himself, _boy, I hope I won't have to kill you too._

----

L milled around in the blankets while Raito was gone. He began to think up exactly how many ways a mortal could strangle himself in such a mess. Now that Raito mentioned it, humans were subject to the elements, and had their own body heat to keep them warm. L understood that blankets trapped this heat and kept them warm.

Simple, yet effective.

He was still submerged when he noticed another presence in the room.

And it wasn't Raito's.

He cautiously phased through the mattress and underneath the bed, where he could see black-clad feet clomping around on the wooden floor. The owner of the feet was humming to himself. A little ditty about apples.

It was Ryuk.

"Why are you here again?" L asked from the safety of the shadows beneath the bed. The feet stopped, and the shinigami twisted its body around so that it could see him. "I got bored again," was all it could say.

L huffed disdainfully at how easily he was located. "Go be bored somewhere else," he spat. The shinigami gave him a peculiar look before asking him where the apples were. L replied that he didn't know. Then it mentioned that he knew last time.

L told it to shut up.

That was about the time Raito Yagami walked in the door. He glanced lackadaisically from Ryuk to the shadowed form of L and told them that they could both get the hell out of his house.

"No," said L.

"Do you have any apples?" asked Ryuk.

L watched from beneath the bed as Raito dug his nails into his eyes. The poor Yagami boy had a lot to worry about. Being a model student, studying for a college entrance exam, having sporadic visits from an unwelcome shinigami, living with a psychopomp, and being Kira.

If he were in Raito's shoes, L wasn't sure he would be able to put up with it.

"He wants an apple," explained L.

"You've got to be kidding me," Raito hissed.

"No, really," said the shinigami with a spoonful of melancholy. L could tell that this wasn't the answer Raito had been expecting. Nor was it the answer Raito wanted. He sashayed into the room as if he owned the world, and then proceeded to quietly, quaintly, and politely insult Ryuk in the most impersonal way L had ever seen.

"I hate your shoes."

L was stunned. Never before had he heard something like that. Sure, he could understand how Raito could hate his face, or his wardrobe, or his stupidity, or even the tone of his voice.

But his shoes?

L understood perfectly well _why_ Raito had said it. He was tired and bored, and he deeply disliked Ryuk for showing up unannounced. He didn't give the shinigami a witty and cruel insult. Rather, he chose to insult it in a cold, indifferent way that required little to no mental effort on his part.

"I hate your shoes too," Ryuk yawned.

"I'm not wearing any shoes," stated Raito.

Ryuk looked down at the Yagami's sock-clad feet. "Oh," it said stupidly.

"Seriously, why are you here?" Raito asked boredly.

The shinigami scratched its head. "Well, I really have nothing else to do."

A stupid answer, as L had expected. He slunk out from under the bed and perched on the corner of the raised platform on which it sat. Raito gave him a look. "You messed up my bed," he said flatly. By then, L knew that this was his cue to feel foolish and apologetic.

He didn't like that very much.

"With all due respect, your highness," he groused, "I believe you have bigger problems at the moment."

Raito snorted at him, and then whipped his attention back to Ryuk. "I want to know why you're following me," he said viciously. "What do you want?"

"Apples," said Ryuk.

"Wrong," said Raito.

L concurred.

"Like I said before, I have nothing else to do. Basically, _none_ of us have anything else to do. Shinigami, I mean. We just gamble or sleep. So I got bored. I overheard that there was a new Kira somewhere in the human realm, so I came for a look. Now they're saying you're killing people already. I had to come back."

"Already?" asked Raito, eyes darkening with pride. L snorted at him. Yagami definitely was the high-and-mighty type. "The other Kira tried his abilities out on his acquaintances before he went public," said L before Raito's ego inflated any further.

Raito scowled at him.

"Really? I can't remember," said Ryuk with a scratch of the head, "All I remember is that he had a thing for chocolate."

"That he did," said L disdainfully.

Fucking chocolate-blueberry muffins.

----

Raito's day had just hit rock bottom, and then it started tunneling. First, he humiliated himself in front of Ryuzaki, next, his dad had plastered a target on his heart that said 'hit me' in big, block letters, even worse, his job was getting dull.

And now, when he thought he was the king of the world, he turned out to be second best.

Second fucking best.

"You never told me about another Kira," Raito growled in his godly voice. Ryuzaki gave him a mild glance. "You never asked about him," he said simply. This made Kira very angry.

"This is the sort of thing you should have told me when you met me," Raito reprimanded righteously.

"I didn't think it was the sort of thing you needed to know," Ryuzaki answered.

"You're in trouble," Ryuk said before he walked through the wall in search of an apple or two.

"You didn't think so?" Raito fumed quietly.

"No," Ryuzaki said before becoming very interested in his feet.

Raito took this as a sign of submission. Encouraged further, Raito continued stomping all over Ryuzaki. "Why not?"

"Because."

"Is that all you can say?"

"You love to argue, don't you?"

"What about it?"

"Well I will not argue with you, Yagami-san," Ryuzaki stated obstinately.

Raito quirked an eyebrow at the obvious challenge to his authority. "Well I can argue with you as much as I damn well please," he roared. "Now tell me who this other Kira was!"

"No."

"Why the fuck not?"

"Because you're yelling."

Raito ran over to his bed, collapsed, grabbed a pillow, shoved it into his face, and screamed. Him! Yelling! Again! He _had_ been yelling, hadn't he?

Fuck.

Someone probably heard him. He was in luck that no one had come up the stairs looking for him. Raito was no Kira. Raito was a fucking loony. That was what he was. Yelling at Ryuzaki and forgetting that no one else knew what he was yelling about.

"Raito-san!" Ryuzaki was tapping the pillow. Raito breathed a long and anguished sigh before exhaling an equally long and anguished "Whaaaaaaaaaaattt?"

"You were hurting yourself again," said the mini-death.

"Why do you care?"

"It's not healthy."

"You eat nothing but cookies. You shouldn't be talking."

"It doesn't affect me, Raito-san. Now please, stop it."

"Are you going to tell me about that other Kira?"

"No."

Raito hit himself in the side of the head with his fist.

"Raito-san!"

He hit himself again.

"Fine," said Ryuzaki, "Throw a fit."

And Raito did.

It was his own style of fit, of course. Raito had perfected the art of doing absolutely _nothing_ in protest to something he didn't like. He lay there, with his face in his pillow, and held his breath.

He held it for a very long time. So long, in fact, that he had given himself quite a headache. Ah, well, he could bear it. It was for the greater good, after all. Judging by the way Ryuzaki was acting lately, he was worried about Raito's safety. It was extremely obvious.

Yet, as Raito's headache increased in its intensity, Ryuzaki did nothing. He was still sitting on the bed, making it tip slightly, but nothing was happening.

Hmmm…

Had Raito miscalculated something?

Of course not. He was going to press that information out of Ryuzaki. And since he couldn't punch him, he was going to have to resort to other means. Maybe if he held a razor to his wrist, the mini-death would do something drastic.

There was an idea.

Raito's lungs began to ache. He was rather uncomfortable and wanted to move, but he kept perfectly still.

No signs of weakness.

Raito was in control.

Complete control.

He felt Ryuzaki starting to squirm at the other end of the bed. He was probably shuffling his feet around nervously. Raito smiled into his pillow.

Any minute now…

But he did nothing.

Just _continued_ to do nothing.

What the fuck was he thinking? Here Raito was, suffocating himself to death purely by choice, and Ryuzaki was sitting at the other end of the bed and twiddling his toes. Of course, Raito mused, once he passed out, his muscles would go lax and he'd breathe anyway.

So Ryuzaki knew nothing about human lifestyle, but he knew _that_?

No. He had a different reason.

Ryuzaki was watching time fly by because if he did anything about Raito's masochism, he'd lose his argument. Raito inferred from the time they met that Ryuzaki was an extremely inflexible, unyielding wall of _stubborn_.

And damn, was he right.

He was always right!

A new voice resonated from beyond Raito's vision. It sounded like Ryuk's. "I think he's dead," the voice hummed.

With that, Raito smiled, exhaled all the breath he had been holding, and passed out.

----

Me: Oh my.

Chibi Misa: O: That works!

Chibi L: Me oh my. Fancy that.

Chibi Raito: This is-

Chibi L: getting off topic.

Chibi Raito: I think we should-

Chibi L: End this author's note really soon.

Chibi Raito: I want a grilled-

Chibi L: Cheese sandwich with tomato soup.

Chibi Raito: 'Kay, this is-

Chibi L: Really weird.

Chibi Misa: Yeah. Sure. Anyway, like? Don't like? Want to huggle it to death? Want to huggle our dysfunctional couple and their nosy neighbor to death? Review!

Me: Totally! For freedom!

Chibi Raito: For justice!

Chibi L: For cookies!

Chibi Misa: Cookies for reviewers! Sit back in your chair, write a review, and have a cookie! Review, review, review!


	4. Man Down

**DS**

**Disclaimer:** If only you knew how painful it is for me to write disclaimers.

Chibi Misa: Like, hi!

Me: Yes! Hello again from your pal Swirly! Thank you all for your wonderful reviews and support! I love every last stinkin' one of you!

Chibi L: -waves victory sign-

Chibi Raito: SNOOOOORRREEE…

Chibi Misa: Oh my.

Chibi L: Kira snores? Mmmm…

Me: Ah… hah… yes, well, enjoy another chapter! Is he really snoring?

Chibi L: I think so.

Me: x:

Chibi L: Interesting…

Chibi Misa: Regardless of whether or not this is the shortest introduction in DS, enjoy the rest of the show! Read, review, and relax!

**D S 4**

He didn't know what to do.

Never before had it been a problem, but this human had a way of creating problems, didn't he? Troublesome.

Regardless, L looked down on the still, defenseless form of Raito Yagami, who had passed out five minutes ago on his bed, and had no idea what to do.

"Whoops," said Ryuk stupidly, "You think you should've stopped him sooner?"

"Yes," mused L worriedly, chewing in the end of his thumb. He should have stopped him. It was Raito's own fault that he had passed out, but L could have done something to prevent it.

"So what're you gonna' do about him?" the shinigami asked while munching on another apple.

"I am not sure," L said, blinking twice for good measure. Raito told him of the frailties of mankind. They were surprisingly defenseless against the cold. The sun had set a while ago, so the temperature would drop substantially within the next few minutes. What was more, Raito had to breathe. L assumed he couldn't do that very well with his head in a pillow. All in all, it added up to the fact that Raito would _not_ last long if he was left the way he was.

L had to do something about it.

His argument with Raito Yagami had passed, and it would likely surface again. Presently, though, L had more important issues to deal with.

He pulled the blankets back toward the end of the bed, having to pull them out from under Raito at the same time. He then grabbed a handful of cloth and heaved it in Raito's direction.

Hauling all that fabric made L doubt, once again, the overall usefulness of blankets. He didn't understand how a person could feel comfortable under all that cotton, polyester, and rayon.

It made L's toes itch.

"What are you doing?" munched Ryuk interestedly.

"Covering him up," explained L as he pushed against Raito's blanket-cushioned side to roll him on his back. Ryuk nodded as if it understood.

L knew perfectly well that it didn't.

Nevertheless, he bit his lip and shoved Raito's body over with all of his might. L winced as one of Raito's arms shot out at a weird angle to accommodate the sudden change in position. L gave one final shove and Raito's back hit the mattress with a thud.

L sighed and fell over in the comforter. "You could've helped," he informed Ryuk with an angry huff.

"You didn't ask," it said pointedly. L gave it the eye, then rolled over onto his other side, facing Raito.

Raito's head was lolled peacefully and lazily to the side. His delicate, dark eyelashes dusted his rosy cheeks and his pink lips twitched every now and then. L watched the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest and thought that he must be the most comfortable human in the world.

He cocked his head and listened to the sound of the air breezing in and out of Raito's lungs. He found himself relaxed somewhat. It was calming.

Slow and deep.

All those nights when Raito's eyes drifted shut and his breath evened out, L took it upon himself to sit and admire the misery in Raito's soul.

When he was awake, he was a god. He was a raging inferno of misguided justice. As long as he kept his eyes open, Raito ruled his realm with an iron fist and a heart of stone. He sealed himself inside his own fortress and saw to it that no unwanted emotion got through.

He was a killer.

Cold and calculating.

When he was asleep, he was Raito Yagami.

A dozing Raito lacked the consciousness to raise emotional barriers. A snoozing Raito cared not a button for the sins of the living. A dormant Raito didn't waste his energy furrowing his brow and glowering at those who opposed him. A slumbering Raito couldn't lift a finger against his enemies.

Raito Yagami was not invincible.

He was vulnerable, conquerable, warm, and alive.

A human being.

The real Raito.

The real Kira.

The Great Death's arm twitched. He breathed a deep sigh and tilted his head back, unknowingly baring his soft, pale neck. L gazed and took the moment to consider what it would feel like to slice straight through and feel Raito's hot, wet, red life bubbling through his fingertips.

How easy it would be.

Then, his mind dimly re-registered that there was someone in the room other than himself and Raito. He rolled his eyes skyward and caught a glimpse of the vulture-like apparition lurking in the corner. "You've been awfully quiet," mentioned L.

"I didn't want to interrupt," Ryuk explained.

"Hm," snorted L.

He leered over at the shinigami. "Why are you still here?" he asked it.

Ryuk looked over at him with those drowned fish-eyes. "No reason really. It's much better down here I think," he hummed with a scratch of the head. "The apples are better."

"I see," said L detachedly. He propped himself up on one elbow and watched as Raito breathed yet another deep sigh. "I have no objections to your being here," he said softly, not taking his eyes off of the brunette boy, "but I doubt that Raito-kun needs two invisible people-ah… things watching him while he sleeps."

The shinigami scratched its head, then finished its last apple.

Ryuk seemed to get the hint. It hovered there a moment more, looked over somewhere, and then looked back. "I guess I'll leave then," it said. Without another word, it simply walked through the wall and disappeared.

This made L very happy.

Just then, he was jerked back into reality by a very alarming sound.

His head whipped over to see that Raito's eyes were clenched shut and his mouth was contorted in pain. L shot up out of his spot on the bed sheets.

That bastard shinigami!

What had it done?

L scurried over to Raito's side and assessed the damage.

The brunette's arm was twisted painfully behind his back.

L breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Nothing serious.

Raito was working frantically in his sleep to undo the knot he found himself in. Raito's arm shook spasmodically and L lay back down on his elbows and watched. He wanted to help, but he figured Raito could do it by himself. Sure enough, through countless fits of squirming and shaking, the Yagami freed his arm. He blissfully 'hmmned,' to himself and subconsciously tucked his arm against his side.

L smiled.

He was beginning to understand why Near found his Kira so fascinating.

"You're very interesting," L told him.

"Hhnnnuuuuuhhhhhhh…" said Raito.

"Yes," L agreed.

He left Raito to his own devices and went in search of a cookie. L padded down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he found a plate full of frosted thumbprint cookies, each with a juicy, red cherry on the top.

L rubbed his palms together in anticipation and snatched one up. He was overjoyed to find that they were just as delicious as they looked.

A perfect combination of doughy, sugary sweet, and fruity, juicy goodness.

Yum.

He popped another one into his mouth. A few minutes later and he sent another to check and see that the first one was alright.

L sat back against the counter and watched the clock tick on the wall. It was quite boring down here. Perhaps he should go back up into Raito's room. Things were much more exciting up there.

He downed a glass of milk, and then his mind set to wondering why the first and second cookies had not reported back.

So he sent a third one to check up on the both of them, a fourth to aid in the rescue effort, a fifth for extra brute strength, and a sixth for moral support.

After that was over, L decided to go back upstairs. Cookies were only fun for so long. He didn't want them singing to him again either. He huffed melancholically to the kitchen before drifting through the ceiling, through the polished floorboards, and into Raito's room.

The brunette in question was still asleep. His injured arm was flung over his forehead, palm up, and his other arm was resting over his chest. L perched at the foot of the bed as Raito sighed again and sleep-stretched. L grinned a little. Raito's eyes were flicking around underneath their lids. He was dreaming about something again.

One time, he had a dream about nothing happening when he snapped his fingers. The time before that, he had a dream about getting caught by the police. The time before that, he had a dream about a television show he had been watching between news briefings.

Last time, he had a dream about losing to L in a game of chess.

L's ego feasted on that one.

Raito's foot seized up once, then shuddered, and after that he groaned to himself and half-rolled onto his side. He started making very strange noises in his sleep. He sighed, huffed, grumbled, and groaned. Raito rolled completely over on his other side, crushing his arm again and yelping in pain.

L found it quite strange that he wasn't waking up.

Raito had pried his arm free again, yet he was still curled up in pain and making those awful noises. His breath was coming abnormally fast and his skin was glistening with sweat.

L tilted his head and blinked several times to clear his head. Perhaps Raito was having a nightmare. By the looks of things, it was much worse than the other dreams he normally had. L contemplated waking him up. Nightmares could be nasty.

Raito's hurt arm was underneath his body again, but something was different. It was shaking, like Raito was trying to push himself up on it.

Something in L's mind clicked.

Oh, fuck.

Raito started coughing and wheezing and thrashing around on his bed. L leapt off in a panic. "Raito-san?" he called frantically, hoping that the suffering teen would answer.

"Ryu-" gasp, "-zaki…"

"What is it?"

"Help-" cough, "-me…"

Holy fuck.

Raito was having a heart attack.

Now, because he was panicking, L's mind was not working properly. L hadn't figured out how to deal with strenuous situations properly because he had never been in one. This was a problem.

Raito was counting on him to do something.

L wanted to help Raito in the most immediate way he could, so he reached out.

And his hand went straight through Raito's chest.

Raito screamed.

Shit!

L whipped his hand back and Raito crumpled over in agony. He had no time to think about what he had done. He needed to do something.

Now.

"Raito-kun! Raito-kun, are you alright?" L's hearing picked up two sets of feet thundering closer. Soon, they were joined by a third pair of slightly smaller feet.

Ah.

Raito's yelling must've woken them up.

His father burst through the door, denting the wall behind it with the doorknob. "Raito!" he exclaimed as he saw his son writhing around in his sheets, coughing and gulping air like a fish out of water.

His mother screeched and ran back downstairs, intercepting Sayu on her way.

"Dad," Raito coughed. Soichiro jumped onto the bed with an energy L had never seen in an old man like him. As he paced back and forth, L heard him repetitively telling Raito to breathe.

A heart attack.

Kira was going to die from a fucking heart attack.

L heard Sachiko yelling at the emergency service operator through the phone. Then she yelled at Sayu to get back into her room. Raito's sister was starting to cry. L heard her bawling and thundering across the floor.

In the mean time, Raito's father had acquired an inhuman amount of energy. He had placed an arm beneath his coughing, squirming son's shoulders, one beneath his knees, and then hoisted him off of his bed and was carrying him hurriedly down the steps.

"They've sent an ambulance!" Sachiko screeched, "It'll be here in a few minutes!"

L grabbed a hold of the railing on the side of the stairs and threw himself over it, landing with a rather undesirable clomp on the floor. He didn't care. Everyone was too busy to notice anyway.

"Mom! Mom! What's wrong with Raito?" Sayu raced into the room in her pink pajamas and whined.

Sachiko offered a brief explanation and the horror shown clearly on Sayu's face. Tears welled up in her eyes and she started wailing in the high pitched, lamenting wail one heard when a little girl's favorite dog got run over by a car.

As the ambulance came keening down the street, L was given time to think. Raito had a heart attack.

Kira had a heart attack.

…_Why?_

Men his age did _not _have heart attacks. Raito was a perfectly healthy human being. He was physically fit and sharp as a tack. It didn't make sense.

Unless…

That shinigami.

That fucking shinigami.

L was going to kill it.

L knew there was something going on. He knew that there was more to Ryuk than boredom. He would never trust a shinigami again, and he never should have in the first place. Not even in the slightest.

L saw the Death Note in Ryuk's pocket.

He must've written Raito's name in it straight after he left. L hopped into the rather hectic ambulance after the EMTs carted Raito in. He then proceeded to yell over the sounds of the siren, the medical team, and Raito's father to tell him exactly what he thought was going on.

The second he told him that it was the shinigami's fault, Raito howled and made an extremely dramatic gesture with his arms. Seconds later, he had a gaggle of gobbling medical specialists and one frazzled father boring down on him like a flock of vultures.

It took quite a bit of batting around to get them off.

L sighed.

This was the start of a _very_ long day.

----

Raito couldn't remember what happened.

It was too painful.

He had a knack for forgetting things he didn't want to remember. Frankly, he was thankful for it. Combined with the horrible twisting in his chest, he remembered a sensation of ice shooting through his body when he was still in his room. Raito wondered what it was. Well, whatever it was, it had been powerful enough to make him scream.

Other than that, he was sore all over and he felt like he'd been kicked by a horse.

He could only imagine what it would feel like once he was off the painkillers.

His mother had left the room with Sayu about one hour prior and Soichiro stayed behind. He was currently sitting in a chair that he pulled over earlier to Raito's bedside. Raito really wanted to get his dad out of the room so he could talk to Ryuzaki.

The psychopomp in question was perched in a blue-cushioned wicker chair in another corner of the room, chewing the skin off of his thumb.

"Are you sure?" Soichiro asked, brow furrowed.

"Yes, dad. I'll be fine."

He really wanted his dad to leave, but Soichiro persisted in staying in his chair and being generally stubborn. This greatly angered the Great Kira, but he was powerless to do anything about it.

Which was terrifically uncool.

"It was that… that…"

"That what?" groaned Raito.

"I don't know Raito," Soichiro sighed, slouched, and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. "It's because I'm on this investigation," he breathed, "Whatever is killing all these people must know about me. So they used you to get to me!"

Oh.

…

Genius!

Raito sat straight up in bed, causing his father to jump several feet. Through the dizziness and fuzziness wafting over his mind, Raito had an epiphany. Yes! This was perfect! He had a heart attack, a grisly event in itself, which Raito's father assumed was caused by the perpetrator of these murders.

Only a dumbass would give himself a heart attack.

Oh, this was perfect.

"What's wrong?" Soichiro yowled.

"You think that's what did it?" Raito asked, deceptively astonished.

"Yes," said Soichiro, easing back in his chair and breathing a relieved sigh.

Raito kept the façade up. "I can't believe it," he said. True, he couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe his luck.

Soichiro sighed, "I can, and I'm not about to let it happen again." Raito interpreted this as his resolution to stay with his son until he was absolutely certain that nothing would happen to him.

Which would be for about a week, Raito estimated.

Fuck.

He glanced over at Ryuzaki, who was bemusedly un-weaving the chair, and decided that there were too many things he needed to know. He had to get his dad out of the room, dammit!

"Listen, dad," Raito sighed hazily, "You need to go home and get some sleep. I'll be fine."

Soichiro hesitated.

Raito groaned.

"I'll be fine, dad, I really will. I need you to solve this case for me, okay?"

That should have gotten him out of the room.

It did.

Soichiro sighed, glancing forlornly at Raito through his glasses. He smiled a fatherly smile and ran a hand through Raito's hair. "You're right," he said, "The sooner we find out why and how this is happening, the less danger you're in."

"Yeah," Raito agreed all in the name of pushing his father out of the room faster.

"I'll tell the nurse to take good care of you."

Raito was in the mood to flash a sparkly smile, wave his hands frantically in front of his face and say '_noooooo_, that's okay,' really loud. He didn't though. He merely discouraged his father by saying that he didn't want to trouble the staff any more than he had to.

Soichiro gave up after a while and said his farewells to his son.

This made his son very happy.

As soon as Raito was sure his father was safely out of range, he snapped his head over to Ryuzaki and said, "I am Kira."

"Yes," agreed Ryuzaki.

"God of Death."

"Yes."

"The unconquerable, invincible, undaunted, and unchallenged."

"You forgot incorrigible."

"Very funny."

"I think so too."

"Back to the point. Am I or am I not a god?"

"In a sense," Ryuzaki said stealthily.

"That tells me nothing," admonished Raito.

"You aren't invincible, Raito," Ryuzaki pointed out, curling his toes reflexively around the seat of the chair. He chewed on his thumb and stared at Raito through those raccoon eyes of his. "Though I should have told you this when we met," he mused thoughtfully.

"You think?" Raito spat.

"Yes," said the mini-death.

"Jesus Christ," Raito swore.

"How do you know him?" Ryuzaki asked with genuine interest. It was at this time that Raito concluded that he was going nowhere on a rocket sled. He stopped talking altogether and regrouped his thoughts. It was very difficult, as they seemed to like floating away from him in his sedated state.

"I had a heart attack," Raito said severely.

"Yes," concurred Ryuzaki with a matching severity.

"Why?" he asked.

Ryuzaki breathed a very deep sigh, rolled his eyes, and pouted. Raito assumed this to be the mini-death's way of preparing for long discussions. "Raito-san," he began carefully, "I told you that shinigami kill people, did I not?"

"You did."

"I haven't told you why or how, have I?"

"I don't think so."

"Good. I think I should." He took a deep breath, "Shinigami, quite frankly, survive by killing people. Their eyes can see the exact lifespan of a human. The date of their death, if you will. Were a shinigami to kill a human who had fifty years left to live, that shinigami would gain fifty years onto its own lifespan."

He glanced at Raito to make sure he was listening.

And Raito was.

"Continue," he said.

"You know," said Ryuzaki with a thumb to his teeth, "It has just occurred to me that you probably will not remember any of this clearly when your painkillers wear off."

Looking for excuses, eh?

"I'll try my best," Raito said in a warning tone.

Ryuzaki got the memo. He eyed Raito a moment longer before deciding that it wouldn't do him any good to resist Raito's demands.

"I suppose you're wondering how these shinigami kill people."

"Yes," said Raito.

"Well, they have notebooks," said Ryuzaki.

Raito eyed him suspiciously.

The mini-death blinked at him. "They merely have to write the person's name in the notebook and describe the way they die, and it will be done." He thought a moment, "On second thought, they have to have the victim's face in mind as they write the name so humans of a similar name are not affected."

Raito was unhappy at how familiar this method of killing was to his own.

"I believe that a shinigami, probably the one following you, gave you this heart attack," Ryuzaki concluded.

Raito hung his head.

So these things could kill people by just writing their name in a book? Raito began to wonder in mild horror how many other heart attacks he was going to have.

But then…

How come he wasn't dead yet?

"You said that shinigami have only to write my name and describe how I die and 'it will be done,' am I right?" asked Raito urgently.

"You are correct."

"Then why am I still alive?"

Ryuzaki crouched even more in his chair and squished his thumb to his lips. "I do not know, Raito-san," he got up and paced about the room. "Perhaps I am an unknown variable. I am not supposed to exist in the human world, and therefore I am not affiliated with it. The Death Note of a shinigami deals strictly with the human realm."

Due to the drugs in his system, most of this dialogue was going over his head. He had a very faint, insignificant idea of what this was all about.

"Alright," was what Raito said.

Ryuzaki looked at him funny. "You need sleep," he observed.

"Not before I get this straight."

"You may be up all night."

"Not funny."

"No?'

"No."

"I thought it was funny."

"You're getting off the subject again."

"Again?"

"Yes."

Ryuzaki shoved his hands in his pockets and scratched one leg with the other foot. Raito regarded him for a split second before attacking him with another question.

"So, does this mean that I'll get more heart attacks in the future?"

The mini-death tilted his head and crooned approvingly to himself.

"No," he said.

Raito goggled, and then his brain kicked in. No? What did that mean? What was Ryuzaki getting at? He decided to ask.

"You can no longer die of a heart attack, Raito-san," Ryuzaki explained with a sly grin. "One of the perks of my following you, I suppose."

Raito stared.

"You see," began Ryuzaki, "If a Death Note fails, the cause of death written for the individual that was meant to die will never happen again. In short, I suppose that means that you can no longer have a heart attack, and that you can stand outside in the rain for hours and never run a temperature."

Raito stared.

"You will never die of a heart attack or a high fever."

Raito stared.

"Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day."

"What?"

"I thought that would get your attention."

"You've been watching Austin Powers movies."

"Yes."

Raito needed time to ponder this new information. If the cause of death failed, it would never happen to him again. So… if he continued dodging death like this, did that mean that he'd become…

Immortal?

"Does this mean that I'll become immortal?" he asked pointedly.

Ryuzaki offered him a sly, secretive sliver of a smile.

"Time is fatal, Raito-san."

Raito wondered what it meant. Ryuzaki was definitely the secretive type, wasn't he? Raito was forced to, however reluctantly, assume that the answer to his question was no.

He wondered.

He wondered how the last Kira died…

And he was brought back to the reason that he had fallen unconscious yesterday. It was funny how fast his thoughts flew when he was drugged. Perhaps it was due to his lack of concentration.

"About that other Kira," Raito said offhandedly.

And Ryuzaki tripped over his own toes and fell into the wall.

----

"I refuse to talk to you about that, Raito-san, so stop asking," L said once he had righted himself again.

Raito snickered at him and asked him if he walked much. L glanced disinterestedly over at him and tactfully ignored the insult.

"Tell me," persisted Raito.

"No," abstained Ryuzaki.

Raito sighed and sunk into the hospital bed, as was his right. L supposed he could be angry all he wanted as long as he was satisfied. He refused to talk about the other Kira. It wasn't because it was traumatic, nor was it embarrassing. L just didn't feel like talking. And when L didn't feel like talking, L didn't talk.

"You should sleep, Raito-san."

Raito sighed and massaged circles into his eyes with the tips of his fingers. "Stop changing the subject, please," he said tiredly.

L felt some sympathy for Raito.

"He had no eyebrows," L pointed out to put the brunette slightly out of his misery.

Raito removed his fingers from his eyelids and quirked an eyebrow at him. "You don't have any eyebrows either, Ryuzaki," he pointed out.

L reached a hand up to his eyebrows and found that Raito was right. "You're very good," he complemented the Yagami's observation.

"Yeah, I know," Raito said hastily, "That doesn't tell me a fucking thing, Ryuzaki. I want to know everything you know."

That last statement in itself was enough to inflate L's ego a foot or two. Nevertheless, he stubbornly refused to provide Raito with any answers. He continued denying him until Raito gave it a rest.

The Yagami rolled over on his side. He turned his back on L and fell completely silent. L began to wonder whether or not he had done the right thing. Then again, Raito was very crafty. This was all part of his scheme to make L take pity on him.

It was somewhat similar to the cause of his passing out earlier that night.

L sincerely hoped he wasn't going to go through with that again.

"You're not going to pass out again, are you?" he asked warily.

Raito turned over and looked at him. "Maybe I will," he said stubbornly. L nodded, then informed him that it wouldn't be a good idea. Raito asked why. "Those things attached to you," L pointed out.

Raito looked at his arms, then at his heart monitor.

"Fuck," he said, "You're right."

Of course he was.

He was L.

"See?" he said triumphantly, itching his leg with his foot.

"Fuck," cursed Raito, tossing something at the wall. The object hit its mark with a brittle smack before clattering and rolling on the floor. "A pen," Ryuzaki concluded thoughtfully.

Raito exhaled a sharp breath through his nose, shoved his nails into his eyes once more, and turned over. L blinked over at him.

Kira was angry.

Anger raised blood pressure if he remembered correctly. If his predictions were correct, a nurse would come shooting through the doorway right about…

"Yagami-kun! Yagami-kun!" what looked like a handkerchief on a drawstring flew into the room.

Raito let out a surprised noise and made a face at the newcomer. "What?" he asked in a menacing way.

The way a drunk with a pack of illegal fireworks is menacing.

L snorted.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, why?" Raito asked as if he were intoxicated.

The nurse eyed him suspiciously, fluffed up the pillows on his bed, saw to it that Raito was as comfortable as possible, and then left the room yelling about extra surveillance over room such-and-such.

"You really must be more careful, Raito-san," L pointed out with a thumb in his mouth.

"Yeah? Shut up," warned Raito as he sandwiched his head between two pillows and worried the edges of his blankets with his fists. L wondered at his behavior. It was very un-Raito to act in this way.

Or perhaps it was un-Kira.

Yes.

Raito was drunk on sedatives. He couldn't think the way he wanted to. In actuality, this was what Kira was. Prone to fits of anger and selfish behavior. Stubborn and lonely.

A child.

L slid his thumb along his teeth.

Just another human.

He watched as the mound of blankets and pillows fluffed itself up, rolled over, and then stayed utterly prostrate, save for the occasional rise and sigh. L assumed that Raito was asleep again.

How droll.

----

When Raito woke up, he had a massive headache. Of course, he had no idea how it got there, but it was there all the same.

He immediately decided that he would accuse Ryuzaki.

"What did you do?" he growled angrily at the shadow playing with the table lamp on the other side of the room. Ryuzaki looked over at him, quite displeased by the tone of Raito's voice.

"Did I do something?" he asked monotonously.

"That's what I'm asking you."

"No, you're _telling_ me that I did something wrong." Ryuzaki pointed out as he tapped his fingers against the wall, "There is a difference, Raito-san."

"Quiet, you."

"No."

Raito's nerves were frayed beyond repair, and this was not helping. If anything, Ryuzaki was only making his condition worse.

Yes.

All Ryuzaki's fault.

He knew he wasn't getting anywhere with this pointless conversation. He never got anywhere with Ryuzaki. The idiot stubbornly refused to provide him with the information he asked, no matter what the subject.

He huffed to himself, crossed his arms over his chest, and slammed his back into the pillows. Raito came to the realization that he was pouting like a five year old.

And he didn't care.

Odd.

Despite Ryuzaki's annoying refusal to answer any of the questions he may have had, Raito tried viciously to think of another one. He needed information. Answers. His memories of his heart-attack were becoming slightly clearer. He sifted through them, trying not to wince, and then he found one that was remarkably interesting.

"Ryuzaki," he began slowly, observing the mini-death in the corner of the room, "before my dad came up the stairs, I felt something really… cold."

Ryuzaki froze up. Ah… something else he probably wasn't going to tell him. Well, Raito could try. "What was it?" he asked, not particularly expecting an answer. Yet, to his surprise, delight, and alarm, he got one.

"That was me," Ryuzaki mentioned somewhat tentatively.

"That's a bit hazy," Raito muttered, not knowing what Ryuzaki was trying to say.

"Well," the mini-death thought for a moment, "I can't exactly touch humans. I'm just a mass of cold air, I suppose."

Raito's eye twitched. "That would go under the list, and it's a very _big_ list, Ryuzaki, of things that you should have told me when you met me."

"Ah. Sorry," the psychopomp scratched a hand through his dark, shaggy hair. "I suppose I should have. I forgot."

Raito shook his head.

Ryuzaki curled up in the wicker chair and started pulling at the weaving. "You see," he said bemusedly, "it's a sort of barrier between your world and mine. I can't harm a human, and it is impossible for them to harm me back. It's a good system." Ryuzaki paused, crossing his panda eyes and twiddling his toes, "At least it was until a few hours ago. Now I have my doubts."

Raito snorted knowingly at him. "So you do care," he said in the most mockingly wistful and dreamy voice he could muster.

The mini-death gave him a peculiar look. "Yes," he said.

Raito drew one eyebrow down and the other shot straight for his hairline. That wasn't supposed to be the answer. The panda-man was supposed to flounder for words, puff out his proverbial feathers, sulk, and deny it for the rest of the day.

Raito had to remind himself not to be surprised next time.

Better yet, he resolved that he wouldn't ever try to make a comment like that again. It would save him a lot of pain and confusion.

He decided to alleviate his pain with another question. "So how do you pick up pens and eat cookies if you're a mass of cold air?"

"The law only applies to contact with a living being, I think."

"So inanimate objects are just fine?"

"If by 'just fine' you mean I can throw them around, then yes."

"Ah," said Raito with a hand to his chin. Interesting. So when he heard his acquaintances talking about walking through a 'cold spot' somewhere in a dark alley, this was it? Possibly. Raito took it into consideration.

"So while we're at it," Raito mocked, "is there anything else that you should have told me? Anything you would _like_ to tell me?"

Ryuzaki seemed to recognize the edge in his voice. He made a show of pacing about the room, slouched over, and playing with a piece of his hair that he held in his fingertips. "I'll inform you if anything comes up, Raito-san."

Raito knew full well that he wouldn't.

"Try coming up with something in, oh… say… _now_." Raito growled warningly.

Ryuzaki tilted his head to the side, stared at him through those massive holes-for-eyes, and made a peculiar crooning sound from his nose. Raito glared at him, fixing him in place. "Hm," hummed the mini-death.

"You'll beat me if I tell you."

Raito blinked.

Wasn't that the understatement.

If Ryuzaki had been intentionally keeping something from him, Raito would give him hell. Worse, if Ryuzaki had forgotten something, that meant he was just plain stupid. Brainless even. He had yet to see the mini-death do something productive. If he had forgotten, Raito would personally find a way to bash his head in.

Hang on…

"If you can make contact with inanimate objects, how come I didn't hit you when I swung that curtain rod at you?"

Ryuzaki looked at him as if he'd been expecting the question. God! Another thing he knew, but wouldn't tell unless Raito asked. He'd have to introduce Ryuzaki to the game of Twenty Questions.

"You can't attack me. I don't know all the details-" Raito knew that he did, "but if you come at me with ill intentions, wielding a curtain rod or whatnot, I become intangible to that object. It's very complicated."

_Like hell,_ thought Raito.

Ryuzaki knew everything there was to know on the subject. Raito could see it in his eyes. Little shit just wouldn't tell him. Raito wanted to murder him. Maybe he could with these Kira powers of his. However, if Ryuzaki really was the reason that Raito wasn't dying, he might do better with him hanging around. Maybe he'd just beat him to death.

Hmmm…

Speaking of beating…

"Ryuzaki, you mentioned something about me beating you up." Raito mentioned as he examined his nails, "What was it?"

"I said something?" asked Ryuzaki in a singsong voice as he became suddenly interested in the ceiling. Raito took this as a sign that he was headed in the right direction.

"You have two choices, Ryuzaki," reasoned Raito, "You can tell me, or you can't. If you do, I can't beat you. However," and here he paused for dramatic emphasis, "If you don't tell me, I _will_ find a way."

"Ah," said Ryuzaki with an intelligent nod of the head, "I see. In that case," here he broke into a thoughtful silence, likely contemplating what to say or whether to say it at all. "There is something else."

Raito quirked an eyebrow.

"It pertains to your snapping."

Now Ryuzaki had him hooked.

"You see," said the mini-death, "You can… do things to people before they die." Raito didn't even let him finish his thoughts before he said, "Oh you sick sonofabitch." Ryuzaki gave him a look.

"You can control your victims," he said dryly.

"Ah," sighed Raito thoughtfully, "And exactly _how_ do I do this?"

"Well, before you snap your fingers, you need to imagine something happening. It can be vague or detailed, however you prefer. It will happen all the same. Just try not to be too vague."

Raito's eye twitched.

"For example, if you imagined your victim's name and face, then imagined him jumping off of a building and dying, it would happen."

Raito closed his eyes and breathed deeply, imagining a wall between himself and Ryuzaki, that he could _not_ punch through, and relaxed.

Slightly.

"So you're telling me now what you could have told me weeks ago?" he asked, trying to keep his voice level and free of stress. Failing, he might add.

"I told you you'd beat me," Ryuzaki reprimanded, chewing on his finger and blinking his big, hollow eyes. Raito sighed. "I wish."

"Hah," said Ryuzaki.

Dislike for the secretive psychopomp aside, Raito turned his attention elsewhere.

As vague or detailed as he wanted, eh? So… If Raito imagined a criminal strangling himself with a two foot snip of red ribbon at nine-o-clock on a Tuesday morning, it would be done?

The Great Death smiled to himself.

This ought to put the spice back into life.

----

Me: Another chapter. Plus, did anyone else besides me just find out that coughing and writhing around on the floor during a heart attack can lessen your chances of dying?

Chibi Misa: Wheeeee!

Chibi Raito: Damn you, putting me through this!

Me: Aw, you know you like it.

Chibi Raito: Having a _fucking_ heart attack?

Chibi L: Well, it wasn't technically a _fucking_ heart attack, but…

Chibi Raito: Stay away.

Chibi L: -whistles-

Chibi Misa: Er… yeah. For all of you who bother to read the author's notes, Swirly loves you! Even those of you who don't read the author's notes, cuz' what do they matter anyway?

Me: Right.

Chibi Misa: Cooookies!

Chibi L: Where?

Me: Review! I like to know whether or not I'm doing a good job! Cookies for those of you who keep up my self esteem and for those of you whose opinions tempt me to sway in my story line!

Chibi Misa: Yay! Review for cookies!

Chibi L: Where?

Chibi Misa: Review, review, review!


	5. Cold as Ice

**DS**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Wizard of Oz!

Me: Omgooglies. Another chapter!

Chibi Misa: No way!

Chibi L: Cookies?

Chibi Raito: NOOOOOOOOOooooooooo!

Me: Yes, well, once again, thanks to all my reviewers! You guys make my day! Kudos, snickers, cookies, and CAKE for you!

Chibi L: CAKE? o.o

Chibi Raito: Holy God.

Me: -blinks at L- no cake for you.

Chibi L: What is this CAKE of which you speak?

Me: Nothing you need to know about.

Chibi L: I'm not so sure about that.

Chibi Raito: We're sure.

Chibi L: I'm going to find out what this CAKE of yours is, mark my words. Judging from the context in which it was put, this CAKE must be something sweet, no?

Chibi Misa: Lock him up.

Chibi Raito: I concur.

Chibi Misa: REEAAALLY? –sparkle-

Me: Quick! Start the fic before this conversation gets any weirder!

Chibi Misa: Read, review, and relax!

**D S 5**

Raito raised his eyes to the cloudless, blue expanse of sky and felt immensely large and significant.

Kira was proud of himself. He had been experimenting on the extent to which he could control these humans before they died. He was extremely satisfied with his results.

He breathed in a lungful of crisp, clear air and sighed approvingly. There, in the sky, conceived before the pilot of the acrobatic biplane crashed, was Raito's greatest creation. His pride and joy.

The pilot had a reputation for his superb flying ability and a license to show it. He was also a convicted criminal. _Was_ a convicted criminal, and he had been in hiding for the past three years. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, he had shown up in his sparkly, candy-apple red biplane.

No one knew how, no one knew why. Nevertheless, he had listlessly taken off down the runway and into the sky, spilling out billows of black show smoke behind him in two ominous, severe, English words:

SURRENDER DOROTHY.

Raito smiled.

"Who's Dorothy?" Ryuzaki asked quizzically from his right, completely desecrating the ambiance of the moment. Raito snapped around, calm, and then proceeded to not tell him.

The mini-death gave him a look, then mentioned that Raito had better get to class. Raito hopped along down the hall, looking more cheerful than usual, he was sure.

He'd gotten out of the hospital quite a while ago and was enjoying his freedom. That was his excuse. Students and teachers alike had accepted it, and he had instantly become even more famous throughout the school than he had been before his heart attack.

Raito Yagami was the only person to have suffered at the hands of this Unknown Psycho-Killer and lived.

Oh, yes, Raito was _very_ fortunate that he'd lived.

Oh yeah.

Scary person, that killer.

Yep.

Raito sat back in his desk and stretched like a cat. Ryuzaki made a wry comment on his mood, which the Great Kira promptly ignored, and then wandered around the room as he usually did. Teacher number one slithered through the door, nearly bumping into the mass of chilled air that was Ryuzaki, and asked Raito how he was feeling.

Which was annoying.

Every day, when the teachers made their visits to his class, each one would stop and ask him how he was feeling. Raito understood that they were under strict instructions from Interpol and the Tokyo Police Force, namely his father, to do so.

The constant monitoring of his health was beginning to piss him off. "I'm fine," he said grudgingly, brushing the question off. Everyone in the room stared at him as if they expected him to keel over and die right then and there.

That was another thing that pissed him off.

He had rumors buzzing over his head like flies. He wanted desperately to swat every last one of them out of the air, but it was impossible.

'I heard Raito has superpowers.'

'I heard he's a Martian.'

'You think the librarian's ghost is hanging around him?'

'Maybe he got bit by some weird spider and now he's invincible.'

'And maybe he'll start shooting spider webs out of his hands, swinging from buildings, and being chased by some Frisbee-riding psychopath in green and purple spandex wearing a Halloween mask.'

Hah hah.

Fuck that.

Raito wanted to go home. He hadn't had enough time to experiment, dammit! He had to go to school and pay attention, though. What would his parents think if star-student Raito Yagami's grades suddenly took a dive?

Suspicious?

Raito thought so.

"I'm bored," said Ryuzaki. Raito buried his head in his arms.

"Something wrong, Raito-san?" Damn. Fucking teacher saw him. Raito raised his head a little and said, "Nothing, just tired I guess."

"Ah," the teacher said, pushing his glasses up higher on the bridge of his nose, "It would do you well to get more sleep when it is more opportune to do so."

"Yes sir."

And life went on.

----

Raito seemed a bit more eager than usual to get home. L asked him why.

"Because," said Raito. L scrunched up his nose and snorted. He just _knew_ that he never should have told Raito about this. Now Kira was obsessed with finding the limits to his capabilities. He was a fanatic.

Perhaps that was why L was reluctant to provide him with the information he sought. Raito would become obsessed. If he went into detail about the first Kira, there was no telling what Raito would do.

There were thousands of little tiny details surrounding his death, and Raito was sure to unearth each one and beat it lifeless.

However, if L persisted in his secrecy, the Yagami would become obsessed anyway. He'd never leave him alone. L wouldn't have a second of peace. Perhaps, if Kira decided to ask him again, he'd go one detail at a time.

Knowing Raito, if L decided to tell him so much as the first Kira's hair color, he'd go on a head-hunt.

So frustrating…

And who was this 'DOROTHY?'

Maybe Raito was a DOROTHY fanatic too.

School was out and, all in the name of subtlety, Raito rocketed out the door. L went racing after him.

"Raito-san!' he grumbled loudly, "Run slower!"

Raito looked back at him as if that was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard and didn't slow down at all. L figured as much. He huffed to himself before deciding that desperate times called for desperate measures. He melted straight into the floor and emerged on the sidewalk outside of the building.

If Raito's habits were anything to live by, he would be running past this very spot in thirty seven seconds. Slyly, L melted back into the cement and waited.

Thirty

Twenty nine.

Twenty eight…

L yawned. He could feel the vibrations of hundreds of students spilling down the stairs. Among them would be his target. Oh, Raito would lament the day he ever defied L.

Oh yes.

Six.

Five…

L pushed up slightly on the slab of concrete, feeling it rise an inch or so. He instantly flew up out of the ground, hid in a tree a few feet away, and watched.

He didn't have to wait long. Raito's eyes gazed at the ground in horror. He tried to slow down, but alas, inertia would be his downfall.

Quite literally.

Two.

One.

Raito cursed, caught the toe of his shoe on the sidewalk's edge, and fell. Gracefully, loudly, and punctually. Just the way Raito would have wanted. L clapped his hands together in triumph and hummed approvingly at the mess he had made.

Raito removed himself from the pavement, brushed off any unwanted stares along with the dust on his uniform, and stood there looking every bit like the Queen of Tokyo and not caring a whit. L loved the look on his face. Lips turned down, eyebrows scuffed, eyes narrowed, nose in the air… So typical.

His Majesty the Queen focused his righteous glare on L, plotting to exact his revenge, no doubt. L felt silly, so he gave him a silly look.

"You earned it," L said, biting his tongue to keep from making a fool of himself. His Majesty, as L was now going to refer to him, stuck his nose further into the air and marched onward. The psychopomp, who was more than happy with his work, sauntered jovially at his heels.

Once they were a fair distance away from school, Raito wheeled around and hissed, "That's the last time you make a fool of me!" He wrung an imaginary L's neck in his fists.

"I did tell you to slow down, did I not?"

"That was cheap," His Majesty growled, looking nothing short of adorable, all scuffed up as he was. L knew that wasn't his intention, but nevertheless, Raito was very fluffy when he was angry. It was in suddenly appraising Raito Yagami's cuteness that L noticed he was limping. His Majesty must have twisted his ankle.

"You hurt your ankle," said L.

"_You_ hurt my ankle," Raito corrected. "Besides," he said darkly, "I'm fine. Just leave me alone."

L bit his thumb.

Oops.

It seemed he had gone too far. One thing was for sure, and that was that Raito had absolutely no tolerance for humiliation. Perhaps said mortal was not used to being played tricks on. Maybe he had a strange sense of humor.

Correction.

Raito _did_ have a strange sense of humor.

"It looks like you broke it," L said, taking the way his shoe twisted when he walked into consideration.

"I didn't break it, you idiot," Raito snarled, "_You_ did."

"So your foot is broken then?"

"I didn't say that."

"You did."

"Look," Raito growled in exasperation, "The point is, this is all _your_ fucking fault. My foot isn't broken. I can't break my foot by tripping on a fucking crack in the fucking sidewalk. If you hadn't pushed that fucking slab up, which I know you did, by the way, we wouldn't be having this fucking problem."

"You swear too much," L pointed out with his thumb in his teeth.

"I can swear how much I damn well fucking want, you son of a bitch!"

L counted three on his fingers. He glanced once more at Raito's unnaturally floppy foot. "You should really have that looked at," he said, feeling slightly guilty.

L never guessed that his last comment would send Raito reeling over the edge. Kira wheeled around in a flash, eyes burning and lips curled into a snarl. He fixed L in place with the steely eye of a tiger.

"You know what, Ryuzaki?" He began freakishly coolly, throwing his backpack on the ground and dashing all of its contents to the pavement, "Why don't I just _kill_ my dad, huh?"

L sank into the ground. Of course Raito would be concerned about his father. Hmm… what else could he have overlooked? The psychopomp had just stepped onto a minefield.

"Why don't I just give him a heart attack _now_ instead of waiting until he dies because he's worried too much about me? Wouldn't that be easier on him? Do you want to kill my dad, Ryuzaki?" Raito was now standing defiantly, arms open wide and face red, looking like he wanted to boot L halfway across the world.

"Pardon me," L said snidely in a final effort to gain control of the situation.

If anything, that remark only served to fuel the fires of His Majesty's rage.

"Fuck, Ryuzaki! My dad's already worried enough about me as it is! I already have an army of people waiting to rush me to the hospital if I sneeze! Do me a fucking favor and GO AWAY!"

Kira swiftly turned his back, swept up all of his belongings in one hand, hefted his backpack over his shoulder, and hoofed it for home.

L stood there, in Raito's queenly dust, and moped.

For the second time in his life, L didn't know what to do.

----

Raito couldn't believe it. The nerve of that fucking idiot!

He lay on his bed, listening to himself breathe.

When Raito came in the door, he flew straight up the stairs. He vaguely remembered Sayu trying to get his attention, but he didn't care. The pain in his foot was enough to drown her out.

Raito looked over at the aforementioned offending foot. It was swollen. Every time he moved it, it hurt like hell.

Raito held his face in one hand and fell back onto his mattress again.

This was not supposed to happen. Did Death ever twist his ankle? No! Did God ever trip over an uneven sidewalk? No! This was _not_ supposed to _happen_!

He expected that annoying son-of-a-rich-man's-dog to come careening through the wall at any minute. Raito was going to kick his spidery ass. He was going to find a way, by God. How dare that idiot trip him! Of course, Raito knew it was Ryuzaki's fault. He knew it from the start.

He tripped him.

It was _his _fault Raito's foot was twisted.

God, this was bad. Not only did his foot hurt, but… well… tripping and falling on the sidewalk wasn't good for his image. Raito didn't understand. Why, if he was Kira, the God of Death, did all this shit keep happening to him? And why couldn't he keep cool about it?

This whole 'Kira' deal wasn't working out.

Raito immediately slapped himself. He couldn't afford to be thinking that way. All he needed to do was relax. Relax and watch out for Ryuzaki.

And kick his ass.

Raito was repeating himself, wasn't he? Ah, well. All the more to reinforce his point. Ryuzaki was a fool. An idiot. And Raito was going to _kill_ him.

Raito allowed himself a minute or two to cool down, and then resolved to sit at his desk with the news switched on. He did nothing but breathe for several minutes, trying to calm himself down. When he deemed he was levelheaded enough to do his job right, he focused his attention on the television screen.

Raito snapped a few times before realizing that it was making him feel better. It was like a relaxation exercise. Not that he was complaining, of course. Raito was secure in the fact that no matter how much anyone pissed him off, he always had a way to get back at them. Raito liked being God. Oh hell yes.

Maybe he'd force Ryuzaki's sins on a mortal or two.

He could kill whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted, however he wanted. The first person he killed would hang himself in his jail cell. Kira hadn't specified how, and he was curious to see whether or not, because of his lack of detail, it would happen. His second victim would die by throwing himself off of the Sears Tower in exactly four hours, thirty minutes, and seventeen seconds. However, said person was currently imprisoned in Australia. He was eager to see how that one turned out. The third would kill his colleagues before he was shot by police. The rest, he prescribed heart attacks to, all under different circumstances of course, just to keep things interesting.

Yes, Raito had complete control.

Over any human, anyway.

Speaking of which, where was Ryuzaki?

Raito pushed his chair away from his desk, leaned backward, and peered out the sliding glass doors leading to his balcony.

There was no one there. Raito raised an eyebrow, unimpressed.

That asshole was probably hiding down in the kitchen, stuffing himself. Ryuzaki and his fucking cookies. Raito despised him.

He rolled his office chair back to his desk and resumed his work.

Ten people.

Ten convicts before dinner.

That was Raito's goal for the day. It sounded psychotic, setting goals to see how many people he could kill in one afternoon. Yet, Kira derived a sick satisfaction from accomplishing his goals. It was also a welcome distraction from the current turmoil between himself and his panda-eyed nemesis.

So far, he'd accomplished seventy percent. That was seven people. Easy math. However, there were likely only five to ten minutes until he was called down for dinner.

What a thrill.

Raito would have to resort to using his computer. He punched the power button and his computer crackled to life. He kept one eye on the news and one eye on the loading screen, which was taking forever, by the way. In a while, his second information source was up and running.

Raito typed his fingers off. He found two people worthy of his judgment. A busjacker who killed two people and another sex offender on Death Row. Everyone else was… well…

Not only did he want the best criminals out of the lot, he also wanted quick results. If he killed people in jail, he'd most certainly find out about it a day or so later. Then there was his goal to consider…

Hell. Raito couldn't afford to be picky. Dinner was anytime now. He picked a third out of his list, snapped, and leaned back in his chair.

Oh yeah.

Ten people.

Ten convicts before dinner.

"Raito-kun! Dinner's ready!"

Raito smiled to himself. "Coming!" he announced all too sickly with satisfaction. He languidly pushed himself out of his chair and limped down the stairs. Regally, mind you. He had to keep his cool on.

Once everyone was sitting at the table, Raito noticed that everyone was _not_ sitting at the table. He looked left, then right. Then he fixed Sachiko in her seat with what he thought to be a puzzled glance.

"Where's dad?" he asked.

His mother sighed. "He's at work late tonight," interrupted Sayu intelligently, "He said they found a new lead on the Case."

"Sayu!" Sachiko admonished, "You were eavesdropping on your father's call!"

…_Oh?_

Raito raised an eyebrow. "Eavesdropping?" he asked smugly.

"Yeah," she gave her mom a look, "I saw his cell number on the caller ID and I got curious, okay?" Raito could tell by the indignant tone in her voice that she was afraid for her dad.

Raito crossed his arms. So they'd found a lead? Hah! What lead could the Police Force possibly have? What sort of evidence could they find of a killer who killed with his _mind_?

"So," he said offhandedly once everyone had started eating, "What's this about a lead?"

Sachiko gave her daughter a glare before saying, "It's not our place to say, Raito. Your father will have to decide whether or not he wants you to know. That call was supposed to be a secret."

"Sorry," muttered Sayu.

Raito mumbled thoughtfully to himself, then cheerily mentioned, "He gave me a heart attack," as if that explained everything. Sachiko looked at him funny. "I know, Raito. I'm sure your father will want you to know, but I want him to tell you himself. You know how dangerous it is to him if I leak classified information."

Raito nodded.

The rest of his dinner was eaten in awkward silence.

The awkward part being that there were no unexplained noises or missing cookies yet to be reported.

Ryuzaki was not there.

It was weird. He was so used to the invisible man's presence that the house almost seemed to be missing something. It felt…

Empty.

It was annoying.

Raito snorted to himself and announced to his family that he was finished with his dinner and he was going back upstairs to study. College entrance exams were in two days. He needed to burn midnight oil if he was going to survive this one.

Yeah.

Hah.

Raito cracked himself up.

He climbed the stairs with an iron grip on the railing. He needed to hide that limp of his, lest his mother see it and blow her top. He also didn't want to cause Sayu any more grief than he already had. She hid it well, but he could tell she was walking on pins and needles.

He made it safely to his room.

His empty, Ryuzaki-less room.

And he was glad, by God. He didn't want that brainless nuisance anywhere near him anyway.

…

He fell over onto his bed and stared at his ceiling. After a few productive minutes of doing absolutely nothing, Raito whistled to himself and started twiddling his toes. He hated to admit it, but he was bored. He wasn't used to having nothing to do.

He was used to Ryuzaki, always asking him questions about humans and ragging on him about something. It was odd not having his voice constantly invading his thoughts. It was a blessing, and yet…

He sat up instantly with that thought and cast a desperate look at his backpack. Yes… he could study. That was what he said he'd come up here to do, no? He padded over to it and withdrew a few books and pieces of paper. He set them all on his desk, next to his computer and his trusty television. Kira sat in his chair again, whipped open his text book, and studied.

Yes, he was doing something productive. Studying was something he couldn't do with Ryuzaki around. He wondered if, other than saving his life a few times, the psychopomp was capable of being helpful at all.

When he was bored with the first text book, he withdrew another from his backpack. Calculus to quantum physics. That was what it felt like. Book after book after book.

It was ten fifty.

If he was going to do well in school the next day, Raito needed to sleep. However…

He cast a wary glance outside. It was dark and cold out there. There were _shinigami_ out there. Cautiously, he got out of his chair and approached the glass. He peered through his reflection at the sky and the dimly lit houses across the street. Nothing peculiar enough to take note of, he thought.

Regardless, Raito stood stock still for a very long time. He focused all of his attention on the sounds of the room. Other than the occasional, soft buzz of the digital clock and unexplainable creak in the house, he heard nothing.

It was too quiet.

Raito imagined he must have been making a fool out of himself. The Great and Powerful Kira was afraid of the dark. However, the Great and Powerful Kira had a good reason to be afraid of the dark. Yes he did, by God.

There were things living in that darkness that could be listening to him. Watching him.

Waiting.

Keeping an eye trained on the glass doors, Raito slunk further into the safety of his room. He took his shirt off and tossed it somewhere. His belt would have followed, but Raito kept it and stashed it underneath his pillow. Had his better judgment been active, he might have dealt with that certain article of clothing differently. However, his wary self instructed him to keep it near. A belt, when used properly, was a valuable crime deterrent.

He turned the light off, eased himself into his blankets, and wrapped them around him, keeping his eyes fixed on the windows.

Something moved.

Raito's eyes shot over to the floor and his hair stood on end. His eyes searched the wood panels for any sign of movement. Alas, it was dark. Whatever movement there might have been was swallowed into the gloom. Raito grumbled to himself. Just a figment of his imagination.

But…

Shinigami.

Everywhere.

In the corners, in the ceiling, out the window, under his bed, waiting in his closet even. Their glowing, red eyes watching him. Raito turned over in his bed. God, he was making a fool of himself. There was nothing there.

Nothing.

And yet he could not close his eyes.

Raito could not go to sleep.

Where was Ryuzaki? Where was that sick little fuck? Wasn't it him who was normally worried about Raito? Wasn't it Ryuzaki who said the only reason Raito was alive was because _he_ was there?

God above.

Raito was going to die.

Of course, he tried to shrug the feeling off. He wrapped his blankets further around himself and shivered. He had to keep calm. He had to keep his wits about him. He'd never felt so ashamed.

Raito was afraid of the dark. The dark, dammit! Toddlers were afraid of the dark! Gods of Death were supposed to live in darkness! Here Raito was, God of the Pansies. Afraid of the gawdmutherfuckin' dark!

"Ryuzaki, you asshole!" Raito whisper-hissed.

When Raito said he wanted him to 'GO AWAY,' this was not what he had expected. Sure, it was terrific for a while. Now Raito didn't feel so hot.

Speaking of not feeling so hot…

Oh Jesus.

He was going to die of hypothermia. How, Raito wasn't sure. All he knew was that he wasn't feeling as warm as he had last night. His foot hurt too. Shit. It probably got infected or something and he was dying of AIDS. He didn't know exactly how his twisting of the ankle, hypothermia, and AIDS all fit in together, but he didn't care. While he was at it, Raito postulated that, within the next half hour, he would die of a conglomeration of AIDS, hypothermia, the flu, food poisoning, hemophilia, Ebola, the panel on the ceiling falling on his diaphragm and suffocating him, his blankets encircling his throat and suffocating him, and drowning in some way or another.

Now, as an outsider would describe, this was not the way a sane Raito thought. However, given the circumstances, Raito reasoned that his reaction was perfectly sane. He'd been humiliated far too many times by Ryuzaki, who was not in the room and who Raito required to be in the room if he were to survive, some sort of lead had been found concerning him, he had a heart attack not long ago, and a shinigami was out for his blood.

They were going to get him.

Those bastard shinigami.

Ryuk was probably laughing his ugly head off.

And decapitation.

Raito was going to die by that too. After his body temperature had hit room temperature and he'd suffocated.

Just then, something happened that would have easily given Raito his second heart attack.

Ryuk's head popped out of the wall and said, "Yo."

----

L certainly hoped Raito was enjoying his absence.

L hadn't known what to do at first. He'd sulked for a while, long after Raito had disappeared, actually. He felt a strong need to follow and guard him, against his wishes, but instead L respected Raito's demands.

After thoroughly thinking the matter over, L decided that he'd go wreak havoc downtown somewhere to alleviate his boredom. He'd come across a bakery not too long ago, and now he was sitting in a refrigerator full of cake.

And he thought cookies were good.

He had come into the refrigerator initially not expecting much. He was depressed, (which, L understood, elicited a craving for sweets,) and he sincerely doubted that the power of Sayu's baking could be overcome by any other snack imaginable.

A little miracle wrapped in pink cellophane proved him wrong.

L was grateful for Raito's rage earlier, for were it not for said attitude of said human, L would never have found said Fridge of God. It was under these strenuous circumstances that L was introduced to the mightiest treat of all.

The Strawberry Shortcake.

THE Strawberry Shortcake.

With capitals.

He unwrapped another plate of cake and shoveled the spongy goodness into his mouth. His tongue sang. The initial surprise of finding something as heavenly as the Strawberry Shortcake ignited a ravenous hunger in L. As a result, the fridge of cake was more than half empty.

L smacked his lips and licked his fingers before moving on to the next plate. He was flying. L was floating in a pink, fluffy, sugary world of strawberry goodness. The little marshmallow bunnies frolicked in the strawberry fields next to the babbling brook of strawberry syrup, which flowed through the miles and miles of puffy, white cake orchard.

Hah.

Funny.

Maybe there was LSD in his cake.

Goodie!

L shoveled another piece into his face.

As the fridge magically emptied itself, L got to thinking of Raito. There was something tugging at the back of his mind, telling him that he should have been at Kira's house, in Kira's room, making sure something didn't happen to him.

But Raito had made his decision, and that was to exile L to a land of his own devices. Also, that thought didn't involve any spongy, sweet, fruity phrases containing the words 'strawberry' and 'shortcake.'

So L tossed it out the window and stuffed another piece of cake in his mouth.

----

"Get the fuck out of my room."

That was all Raito had to say to him.

Ryuk tilted his head and puffed out a breathy 'hurmmm?' Raito decided to make his point more clear. "Get out of my room. Right now. Get out." He brandished his belt for good measure.

"Why?" said the shinigami as he morphed completely through the wall.

"You tried to kill me."

Ryuk tapped his head with one fingernail. "I did?"

Raito scrunched up his nose. "Yes. You gave me a heart attack with that stupid notebook of yours."

Ryuk continued tapping at his head with his nails. He looked generally clueless, so Raito restated his problem. "I had a heart attack. You're the one with the notebook and the incentive. You did it."

"I don't remember doing that," the shinigami hummed, "But there was this one shinigami who was all mad at herself 'cuz her notebook didn't work."

Raito relaxed slightly. "So it wasn't you then?"

"Nope."

Raito sighed, slouching in his bed and running a hand through his hair. Just about lost his cool there.

"So where's that psycho-doohicky buddy of yours, anyway?" the shinigami asked stupidly. Raito blew a puff of air at his bangs. "I told him to go away," he said.

"Oh?" Ryuk said interestedly. "Yeah," Raito grumbled, "He never listens to what I say normally, now I tell him to go away and guess what! Off he goes!" he made a dramatic gesture with his arms before sighing for the umpteenth time.

Ryuk was quiet for a while. He just stood there like an enormous vulture, waiting for something. Raito narrowed his eyes in annoyance.

"The apples are in the kitchen."

"Thanks."

"Whatever."

And the shinigami disappeared.

Raito was alone again. He always liked being alone. So why didn't he like it _now_? He sat up in bed and cast the world a baleful look.

He was used to having someone pestering him at all hours of the day. Normally this would be considered annoying. Raito, surprisingly, found himself missing it. He hated himself for it. The God of Death was a solitary creature. He didn't need anyone else to keep him company. So why did he want Ryuzaki to come back so badly?

Why, dammit?

Raito buried his face in his hands and groaned.

_Why_?

And who was this other shinigami, anyhow? Who dared to challenge his power? Ryuk mentioned something about it being a female.

Typical.

"You look kinda' under the weather," said the shinigami, which had resorted to using his bedroom door to truck in the mass of apples he had in his arms. "You're no prize yourself," Raito retorted.

Ryuk laughed a creepy, hollow laugh and stuffed another apple in his mouth. He floated around the room, happily munching away and not saying anything else. Raito thought it was a good time to ask him about that other shinigami.

"So who's the one after my ass, then?" he asked in the most haughty, pissed-off voice he could manage. "Hurmmm?" said Ryuk.

"The shinigami chick who tried to kill me. Who is she?"

Ryuk eyed him for a moment, then said, "Why do you want to know?"

Raito smiled.

"She gave me a heart attack."

"Yep, that's what we do. Musta' been feeling kinda' threatened with you killing all those people off and all," said Ryuk as-a-matter-of-factly.

Raito's pride took over and he bit down on his lip to keep from smirking. Perhaps, if he had a little background information on this mystery shinigami, Raito could kill her too. Justice would be served.

"So, your name's Ryuk," Raito said slowly, "What's hers?"

Ryuk gave him a funny look, then burst out in maniacal laughter, spewing bits of apple across the room. Raito, disturbed by this outburst, waited for the shinigami to calm down. "Tell me!" he said indignantly. "Hah! Hah hah! Hoo hah hah haaah!" was the answer he received.

Raito, aware that he was getting slightly red in the face, stood his ground and stayed completely silent.

"That's a good one, Raito!" Ryuk giggled all too familiarly. The addressed boy fluffed himself out in exasperation and embarrassment. "Tell me," he hissed venomously. The shinigami zoomed in on him. "And why would you wanna' know?" he breathed.

Raito knew when he'd been sniffed out.

He decided to give his own ego a boost. He smirked, trying to hide his anxiety and alarm. "Guess you're smarter than you look."

"Eh? Really?" the shinigami belched, "That other Kira tried that trick too."

"Oh?" Raito smirked genuinely this time. So Ryuk was lying when he said he didn't know much about the first Kira? Maybe, since Ryuzaki would tell him nothing on the subject, he could pester the shinigami instead.

Why wouldn't Ryuzaki tell him anyway? Did he have a past with this Kira? A romantic past? Raito grimaced at how difficult it was to stomach the words 'Ryuzaki' and 'romance' in one sentence.

"I'll tell you this, just to save me a little pain later. And I want you to know that I am by _no means_ telling you this because I like you," Ryuk breathed, "Just 'cuz I don't want you yelling at me later."

Raito frowned. "What's this you're babbling about?

"You can't kill a shinigami."

Raito's eyes widened in disbelief and disappointment. His questions about Kira number one took a temporary back seat. "What do you mean?"

"Well, technically, you can kill us, but not directly. You have no idea what our real names are. You have no idea what we looked like when we were human. Not even we know that. I suppose if you found out who we used to be, you could kill us." Ryuk scratched his head subconsciously, "Only the King never was a human I don't think… so…" and here he stopped.

Raito's frown deepened. So shinigami were once human? How did one become a shinigami, then? So many questions he had. It made him feel like a preschooler all over again.

He asked.

"Well, you've gotta' find one of our notebooks and use it. No one who uses a Death Note can go to heaven or hell. That's all."

"Interesting," said Raito. "So. About Kira. The one before me." Raito changed the subject, having all the information he needed from the previous one, "You said you didn't know much about him. I know better. Tell me."

Ryuk gave him a curious look. "You really that interested in him?" he asked.

"Yes," growled Raito impatiently.

"Well, he was this guy," began Ryuk, scratching his head. Raito leaned in and listened. He couldn't believe his luck. Finally! He was hearing what he wanted to hear! After all that waiting. This was it. Other than curiosity, Raito didn't have any reason in particular to be so excited over a small topic like this. However, Ryuzaki made a scene every time Raito asked about this Kira. That alone was enough to fuel Raito's obsessive side. After all, the forbidden fruit was always the sweetest.

"He was blonde with a really weird hairdo. I think he was Spanish. Maybe French." Ryuk scratched his head, "Which were the guys who liked chocolate way back when?"

"When?"

"I dunno. White guys discovering America or something. Which were the guys who liked chocolate?"

"That would be the Spanish."

"Ah. He was Spanish then."

Raito frowned. He got the impression that the other Kira had been dead for eons. Relative to the lifespan of the planet, it wasn't that long ago. Then again, Ryuzaki did say that time passed differently in the realm of the psychopomp.

"Anyway, blondie… weird hairdo… chocolate… er… he really liked stirring up trouble I think. He started a mob in Los Angeles. That's pretty much all I remember."

"What was his name?" Raito asked urgently.

"I dunno," said Ryuk with a scratch of the head, "I think his name was-"

"Mello."

Raito blinked. His head snapped over to the other side of his room.

There, by the bookcase, was Ryuzaki, looking like he'd just been run over by a truck with pink gum all over its wheels. His eyes were narrowed dangerously, his lips were pressed in a thin line, and he was standing straighter than Raito had ever seen before.

And he was mad as hell.

----

Kira was a sneaky bastard.

Stealing information from the enemy, eh? L had waved goodbye to the Fridge of God and gotten to the house just in time to catch most of the conversation.

He was reminded of the horrors of Raito's obsessions. With this question and these answers he was receiving, there would be more questions. L would be forced to provide him with more answers.

L realized that he was not only afraid of Raito's obsessive nature, but also that said obsessive nature could lead him to be an exact copy of another Kira.

He'd be just like Mello.

And that was a horror in and of itself.

Even more horrifying, L was beginning to see a resemblance between the two. L hadn't bothered to peek into Mello's personal life, but from what Near told him, he could assume that Raito and Mello were exactly alike. Both of them were stubborn, bored of life, had a strong God-complex, and looked at killing as if it were a game. If Raito became any more Mello-esque, he'd kill everything. He'd be a cold-hearted, selfish glutton.

He'd toss the people who cared about him around like rag-dolls.

Just like Mello did to Near.

L needed to blindfold Raito before Mello's ghost glued his eyelids to his skull and made him watch himself tear his world apart.

Raito would _become_ Mello.

And Mello was Death.

Destroyer of Worlds.

"That's enough, Ryuk," L announced, waltzing into the room as if he didn't have strawberry sauce all over his clothes (Which, when he thought about it, made no sense. If he could phase through walls with strawberry goo on his shirt, but not a plate full of cookies, something was amiss. Hmmm…).

"By the way," he addressed the shinigami once again, "What do you keep showing up for?"

"Apples," said Ryuk.

"Wrong," said Ryuzaki. He tapped his foot impatiently against the floorboards, "Now, I think it's about time you left, don't you?"

Ryuk got the hint. "Er… Bye," it said as it finished the core of its last apple and flew into the wall.

L's gaze snapped to Raito. He wasn't hurt, was he? No broken bones? No infected cuts? No strange, unexplainable cardiac arrests?

Except for his foot. That, L grudgingly admitted, was his fault.

There was a long silence in the bedroom of Yagami Raito. Neither he nor L said anything to each other. The psychopomp understood that the two of them were no longer on the best of terms. As a matter of fact, neither of them had been on the best of terms to start with. L was, however, concerned with his welfare.

He looked Raito in the eyes. Upon being stared at, said mortal narrowed his eyes and glared down his nose in defiance.

"How's your foot?" Ryuzaki asked flatly.

"Terrific," Raito replied like the Queen he was.

"Pardon me for caring, Yuki-heika," L said passively.

"Was that an insult?" Raito challenged, sitting up straight and glaring coldly into L's eyes. "It is as it is, Raito-san," the psychopomp reasoned ambiguously, "Take it as you like. Now how is your foot?"

"Since when do you give a shit about my foot?" hissed Raito.

"I admit that I am to blame for what happened. Now how is your foot?"

"Damn fucking right it's your fault."

"Would you like to argue with me, Raito-san?" L asked dangerously.

Raito eyed him, measuring him up for a prospective battle of wits and wittiness no doubt. L wouldn't have it. He let Raito scrutinize, provided that he got it through his thick skull that L would argue with him no longer.

Raito rigidly backed down and discarded any insult he might have prepared. "Hm," snorted L. "How is your foot?" he said for the fourth time.

"Fine," Raito lied. And the psychopomp could tell.

"Let me see it," L demanded blandly.

Raito was leering at him again. As trite and cliché as it sounded, Raito was baring a weakness in letting L examine that ankle of his. Raito was peculiar that way.

Mello was also very secretive about his weaknesses.

And that was a place L didn't want to go.

After four full minutes of pointless staring, Raito rolled his eyes, growled, and threw his blankets half off, revealing one khaki pant-clad leg. Ryuzaki hummed approvingly. Good.

Now they were getting somewhere.

L walked over to Raito, who was about as tame as an injured, caged, wild beast and proceeded to analyze his ankle. He wrinkled his nose and snorted. Raito looked as if someone had shoved a giant cherry down the inside of his leg. His ankle was swollen to twice its normal size and it was redder than red.

"Ah, Raito-san," L sympathized with eyebrows turned up and a thumb to his lips, "I apologize." The Yagami boy sighed and rolled his eyes back into his skull. L couldn't say he felt Raito's pain, but he could imagine.

"Do your parents happen to keep a roll of gauze anywhere?" he asked, scratching the back of his head and the back of his foot at the same time.

"The bathroom," Raito grumbled. Not expecting to hear directions, L walked noiselessly through the wall.

He was surprised that Raito was allowing him to take care of him. His pride had been injured along with his leg, and the most reckless, suicidal thing L could do was to bruise Raito's ego. That he was letting L tend to his injuries was a phenomenon. A miracle. L made it a point of his to enjoy the ceasefire while it lasted.

He navigated the halls until he found a bathroom. He searched the drawers and soon emerged with a roll of cloth. With this, at least he'd be able to stop the swelling in Raito's foot.

He used the door to get the roll of gauze into the room and shut it behind him, careful not to make a sound. In the mean time, Raito had resigned himself to his fate, lying absolutely still in his bed with his foot out. This made L very happy. He wrapped the gauze around Raito's foot, making it snug and at the same time being cautious not to cut off his circulation.

"This way," L explained, "the swelling in your foot will slow down. It should be less noticeable in the morning."

Raito said nothing.

When L was finished, he stood back and admired his masterpiece. He decided he'd do something else to alleviate Raito's pain. Raito would hate him for it initially, but it was a plus in the long run.

L took one last look at his bandaging, then reached a hand through Raito's foot. Raito yelped and kicked upward, his foot sailing straight through L's face.

A predictable response.

"What the fuck was that for?" he hissed.

"It will bring the swelling down, Raito-san," L said.

Raito glared at him. "It's cold," he growled skeptically. L nodded, "Yes, but think of it this way; in a while, you won't be able to feel it." Raito hesitated, and then lowered his foot again gingerly.

On a whim, L made a face and fell backwards onto Raito's foot.

The Yagami inhaled sharply and seized up. He gradually eased back into a horizontal position, sighing disapprovingly at L all the way. The both of them lay still for a very long time. L knew Raito wasn't asleep by the way he was breathing. Yet, he made no attempt at conversation. He was content to lie where he was.

He wondered what it was like to be cold. L didn't feel cold. Or perhaps he did, he wasn't sure. Maybe he was too used to temperature.

Numb.

It was a very personal question, but he wondered.

What did Raito feel like?

The question unearthed his thoughts of Raito when he'd seen him dozing on the couch the morning after he met him. He knew very well what Mello had been to Near. Obviously, if Near felt Mello was beautiful enough to watch him sleep, he must have felt or wanted to feel very close to the other boy.

But what had Near been to Mello?

If L were, perchance, to fall in love with Raito, there was no guarantee that his feelings would be returned. He hated to admit it, but there was a very measurable probability that the above scenario would play out.

If Raito became a cold, unloving bastard, where would that leave him?

Discarded?

Feeling inferior?

L didn't like it.

"Where were you?" Raito asked suddenly. Surprised by the question, L glanced down at his shirt, whose pink stains had mysteriously disappeared, then over at him. "I was at a bakery," he stated quite simply. Raito blinked over at him as if that told him nothing. L sighed.

"I was in a refrigerator at a bakery downtown."

"And what, pray tell, were you doing in there?"

"Eating cake."

Raito hummed tiredly to himself. His fatigue did not go unnoticed by L. "Perhaps you should sleep," he suggested.

"Why is telling me about Mello so difficult for you?" His Majesty the Queen asked with an icy edge in his voice.

The sudden change in mood annoyed L greatly. When he didn't answer, Kira got bold. "Was he your gay lover or something?"

Oh, he just had to say it. He just _had_ to pervert something. He had to take the subject in its entirety and fling mud at it.

L threw caution to the wind. He turned to Raito, looked him squarely in the eye, and said, "He killed my best friend."

----

Well, Raito hadn't been expecting that.

Ryuzaki had _friends_?

Confused and tired, he asked of what relevancy that was to him. The mini-death glowered at him. His black eyes filled with lead and his hands balled into fists around his blankets. Raito had never been looked at that way before.

He had the sudden urge to crawl beneath a rock and die.

"You see?" the psychopomp spat snidely, "You're like him already! Are acquaintances a foreign concept to you, Mortal?"

No 'Raito-san?' Raito had also never been referred to as 'Mortal' before. And since when did Ryuzaki yell? It was an unwelcome and uncomfortable change.

"I've seen how you work, Mortal," there it was again, "and you look just like he did. He was a selfish, conceited bastard. He had no tolerance for failure. If he was humiliated by anyone, on any degree, he'd kill them. I told you before, he tried his power out on his closest friends just so he could get results sooner. Near was attached to him. My best friend, Near was. Mello had no heart. Kira took it. Kira stole Near's heart alongside his. God forbid Kira should eat your heart as well."

Raito tactfully and emotionlessly averted his gaze to the ceiling halfway through that speech.

Wow.

Well, he didn't quite know how to feel. He'd never dealt with anything this emotional from Ryuzaki. Come to think of it, that might have been the largest number of words Ryuzaki had ever said at once. Also, this Mello character seemed like a genius to him. Romantic issues aside, he sounded crafty, cunning, and enthusiastic. Raito liked it.

An uncomfortable and apologetic groan rose from the foot of Raito's bed.

"Ah," Ryuzaki sighed, "Gomen, Raito-san, sorry. I got carried away."

Raito kept his stone face on, aware that Ryuzaki was searching him for a reaction. If it was an epiphany Ryuzaki wanted from him, Raito wouldn't have anything to do with it. He'd have to disappoint.

The mini-death scrutinized his expression a moment longer before sighing to himself and falling on his back. "Another Mello is the last thing needed in my world or yours, Raito-san. Please, take that into consideration."

After a long, uncomfortable pause, Ryuzaki glanced over at him again.

"Raito-san," he said in such a strange tone that Raito looked over at him purely out of shock. The deep, angry black in Ryuzaki's eyes had calmed into something akin to a bleak, nondescript charcoal.

"I don't want to end up like Near."

----

Chibi Misa: Zomg.

Chibi L: Oh my. Was that something akin to smut at the end? Something darkly fluffy? Did I say something fluffy? Fluffy like cake? CAKE. Caaaake…

Chibi Raito: Fucking shit :(

Me: Oh my. I did make something remotely fluffeh at the end, didn't I? What, with Mello and Near and Raito and L and all.

Chibi L: Does this mean I have to like Raito?

Me: Yes.

Chibi L: But I don' WANNA' like Raito!

Chibi Raito: What? Does that mean I have to like him back?

Me: Yes!

Chibi Raito: How much do you plan on paying me?

Me: Don't be coy, Raito-chan. You know you like it.

Chibi Raito: Do NOT!

Me: Do TOO!

Chibi Raito: Do not.

Me: Do you really want to argue with the authoress of this fanwork? I control your destiny, you know.

Chibi Raito: -successfully beaten into submission-

Chibi L: Can I hug him?

Me: I think so. Careful though. He might bite you.

Chibi L: -pokes at Raito-

Chibi Raito: Gnarr! –bites-

Me: Bad Raito! –smacks-

Chibi Misa: While that's going on, review! Reviews are appreciated. Swirly uses reviews to feed her fanfics and make them all big and strong! This sweet little fanficcie needs your love and care! Don't let it starve! Review, review, review!


	6. Unintentionality

**DS**

**Disclaimer: **I own a laptop, a recliner, and a ferret.

Chibi Misa: Er… hi again.

Chibi Raito: After a year.

Me: Shut up!

Chibi L: Cake?

Me: I can explain, I swear. I have excuses coming out my eyeballs. I'm gonna' give you one right now.

Chibi Misa: School!

Me: Yes D:

Chibi Raito: I'm a fucking straight A student and look what I can do! –snaps-

Chibi L: Nice try.

Chibi Raito: Shit.

Me: Anyway, welcome to another chapter! I know you all missed me sooo much:3 Love you all too. I'm trying to be a little quicker, but I'm having a stress attack. Bear with me, ne?

Chibi Misa: Read, review, and relax!

**D S 6**

"Did you see anything as you were having this heart attack?"

"Not in particular, no."

"When you say 'not in particular,' what do you mean?"

"No, I didn't see anything unusual."

Raito was not happy with his situation. He was currently sitting in a white room, in a white, aluminum, fold-up chair, at a white card table, with a man in a white coat.

And he was being interrogated.

Well, the Japanese Police force hadn't exactly used the word 'interrogation,' but Raito saw differently. Ah, well, he supposed he shouldn't have been so upset. This meant that the Law didn't have enough information. Their little 'lead' that Sayu blurted out was still in its stages of infancy. Perhaps the police were having trouble with their evidence.

"I dislike this room," said Ryuzaki drearily. For once, Raito had to agree with him.

It was also the first thing Ryuzaki had said to him for three days. As a matter of fact, Raito had been avoiding him on purpose. The silence between them had been more than slightly oppressive and irritating. It dampened his mood while it lasted. His father made a comment about it when they were eating dinner one evening. Raito didn't think he was acting differently, but Soichiro said he looked depressed.

Raito was not depressed.

Not at all.

"Yagami-kun?"

Raito raised his eyes. "Yes?"

"Did you… feel anything different? Something not normal?"

Raito ran a hand through his hair. "I had a heart attack, sir. Yes, it felt different."

The inquisitor sighed, "You are aware of the basic symptoms of a heart attack, are you not, Yagami-kun?"

Raito took another despairing look at him and decided the interrogator was a spineless ham of a man. His face reminded Raito of a greasy, pink, steaming, round pork-roast. What little black hair he had was combed over the great, gleaming bald spot on the crown of his head. Raito particularly disliked the way his fat and stubby fingers shook as he held his handful of papers up to his glasses.

"I am familiar with the symptoms, yes," Raito said tiredly

"Well, other than the characteristic pain in the chest, did you feel anything odd?"

'_Well, other than the fact that you were in crushing, grave, mind-numbing pain…'_

Just wait 'till you have a heart attack, old man.

Despite the man's extreme disrespect on the subject, Raito decided to give him a run for his money.

"Well," began Raito, pausing dramatically in thought with a hand to his chin, "I did feel something, now that you mention it." As he suspected, the inquisitor leaned in anxiously. Raito made a face, clouding his eyes over as if remembering something exceptionally painful. "I remember something really… cold. Like ice in my chest. Worse than ice, actually."

Ryuzaki muttered something off to his right.

"Worse than ice, you say?" the man-pig grunted, "That _is_ interesting." He gripped a pencil in his fat hand and scribbled something on a pad of paper. Satisfied with his answer, Raito relaxed in his chair.

As much as one could relax in an old, metal fold-up chair, anyway.

The interrogator looked over what scant notes he had made, then glanced back at his papers. Raito assumed that the interrogation was nearly done.

Wrong.

"Had you done anything of… questionable legality that day?"

What a nice way of asking someone for a confession. Or was this man testing him for a reaction? Ryuzaki had informed him earlier of a number of hidden cameras installed in the room. He was being watched by an outside source.

If he was being observed and he answered too quickly, it could be assumed that he'd done something. However, if he paused, it would seem that he was hesitating about whether or not he should tell the truth.

If they assumed that he had done something illegal to attract the eye of the Killer, they'd be half right. As much as Raito hated it, killing people, criminals or not, was illegal.

Raito did the thing that would draw the least amount of thought or attention.

He decided to tell a lie.

"There's a magazine that I've been wanting to buy for a while now. It's very rare. An import. Anyway, I saw it in a book store window that day. I didn't have any money with me at the time," Raito slumped and sighed, "I shoplifted it." He made a show of pinching the bridge of his nose and digging his fingers into his eyes. "I didn't think something that minor would attract the attention of the Killer, though."

"You're very crafty, Raito Yagami," Ryuzaki mumbled

The porker scribbled more notes onto his paper. Raito decided he'd add something truthful, just so the police would have something his father could testify to later.

"My father said the reason I was targeted was because of him. He's not exactly a secret agent, so the Killer could have known about him and used me to get to him."

"Hmmm…" said the interrogator.

Raito sighed, playing the part of the guilty criminal.

Ryuzaki's languid voice sounded. "Quite the criminal genius you are, Raito-kun. Though I wonder how you'll provide evidence of the book you stole."

Raito cast a glance behind him.

Raito-kun now, eh?

He focused his attention ahead of him again. Of course he could provide evidence. Raito may have been a model student, but he was a still a teenage boy. A raging ball of hormones.

He had his share of hidden, imported porn magazines.

"Were you being followed by anyone that week? Did you notice anyone unusual around you?"

Raito rolled his eyes at how quickly his heartfelt confession of wrongdoing had been forgotten. Nevertheless, he offered an answer, if only to satisfy the men behind the cameras.

"No, I didn't notice anyone. Then again, Tokyo is a crowded city." Raito then paused, having a thought. These people still thought the Killer was a man. A human.

This wouldn't do. Humans, in general, were not deathly afraid of other humans. However, if this thing, killing the unjust off through brutal heart attacks, was a god… Brilliant. Kira would be a god to men. The god he was. Then he would watch as the world cowered in fear!

Raito made a grim face. "You know, I just have this feeling…"

The inquisitor looked up from his work. "What feeling?" he asked.

Raito smirked inwardly. Bingo. "The thing that tried to kill me… wasn't human." His mind's triumphant smile broadened when the inquisitor asked him what he meant. "No human could possibly do this alone. This is… this is divine judgment. This is a god." It was more than cheesy and generously theatrical, but Raito thought that a little enthusiasm would do him good. He was, after all, the only survivor. His opinions were valuable. "Tons of criminals have died! Hundreds of them! No man could do this alone!" He raised his eyes to the ceiling of the room and said, "A name came to me while I was dying," he chose the word 'dying' for dramatic effect. The man-pig, sitting on the very edge of his seat with his notepad at the ready, said, "What was it? What was it, Yagami-kun?"

"It was…" Raito paused to build up the tension…

"Kira."

----

L didn't like to admit it, but Kira was smart.

He was manipulating human fear to achieve his goals. Well, Raito was a human being, as much as he liked to believe he wasn't, and knew the ins and outs of the human psyche. Fascinating…

L found Raito Yagami utterly fascinating.

But Raito didn't need to know that.

"You're a very good liar. I might have fallen for that one myself," L mentioned, biting his thumb all the while. Raito made a nearly inaudible sound. But L had good ears.

"A confident liar, too," L deadpanned.

"So, Yagami-kun," L blinked over at the table again to find the fat man once again babbling to Raito, "Do you believe that this 'Kira' of yours spared you for some reason? Do you believe he has some other use for you? A purpose, perhaps?"

L gnawed on his thumb. This was a tricky one. Any answer Raito provided could be used against him. If he was modest, he was hiding something. If he was proud, he was Kira's follower.

Raito lowered his head in a perfect imitation of deep thought. Knowing Raito, though, he had already come up with something.

He was a criminal genius.

"Well, Yagami-kun? Need I remind you that your responses are being timed?" L screwed up his face. He had no idea Raito was being timed in the first place.

That was it.

A trick.

L bit down on his thumbnail. Raito wasn't being timed. If Raito was a proud individual, he would immediately reply that yes, he knew. It could be inferred that he was very quick to cover himself. If he admitted that he was astonished and reprimanded the man for not telling him, it could be assumed that Raito was a very hot-blooded and righteous person. If he acted bashfully and said that he hadn't known, that would be the best way to go.

But it was very out of character for Raito to act in the last of the three ways. That in itself was a reason to suspect him.

This interrogator was not a smart man. Not intelligent enough to come up with something like this. He was reading directions and questions off of the sheets of paper in his hands. Whoever conceived the words on those pieces of paper was, indeed, worthy to call himself Kira's adversary.

In the meantime, Raito had been presented with two riddles.

L wondered what he'd say.

"I don't believe you ever told me I was being timed," Raito began, leaning back slightly in his chair, "furthermore, there are no timers in this room. If I were being timed, I would have to be monitored by someone not in this room. If I were being monitored, there would have to be cameras, bugs, or both positioned around the room."

Raito's powers of deduction were impeccable.

However… what would the man upstairs think? Was Raito too smart to be an average kid?

"You are very intelligent, Yagami-kun," said the inquisitor. Raito sighed and crossed his arms. "It's been bugging me," he said, "for the past half hour. I've had this feeling that I'm being watched." Raito cast a wary glance about the room.

And Raito was a very good actor.

Did L mention that?

"Ah, yes, Yagami-kun. There are cameras. Surely, you can understand," the fat man said. Raito rolled his eyes, crossed his arms across the card table, buried his face in his arms, and moped. The inquisitor made a sad attempt to cheer him up. "I thought they were well hidden. As I said before, you're very intelligent."

"Yes, maybe that's why he tried to kill me," Raito hissed ardently, "and maybe that's why he let me live."

L whistled.

A very tactical response. Very tactical indeed.

Raito's timing was perfect. His responses were concise, to the point when they needed to be, and followed directly after one another. This made it more difficult for the man upstairs to form conjectures rooted in Raito's behavior.

Impressive.

Twenty minutes more and Raito was breathing fresh, free air. The man behind the desk had asked him a few more questions before showing him out the door. The questions, L couldn't remember. He'd fallen asleep on the floor.

Which was odd.

He never fell asleep.

He was feeling a bit hungry, too.

However, L most certainly didn't feel like asking one Raito Yagami to bake him a cake. Kira was most likely still edgy about the mini-death's Mello-outburst. What to do…

L's stomach growled.

This greatly alarmed the psychopomp, who took the sudden vocalization as a sign that he was gravely ill. He leapt two feet in the air, sailed back down, crumpled into a ball on the concrete, and writhed. Raito looked back at him, eyes widened slightly. L didn't care that Raito's father was looking at his son in a very funny way. All he knew was that he was in excruciating pain.

Or…

At least…

He _should_ have been in excruciating pain.

"Raito-kun! It's making noise!" L whined pitifully.

Raito's eye twitched, the corner of his lips turned upward, and he squinted. His expression was so ridiculous, that L knew he must have been thinking, '_What's_ making noise, Ryuzaki?'

"What's wrong, Raito?" His father was at his side in a flash as if he'd just been bitten by a snake. The brunette cast a glance at Soichiro and shook his head. "Nothing. Thought I saw something is all."

He cast L a withering glance.

The strange, crawling feeling in L's midsection subsided. He unwound himself and got himself off of the pavement. "Raito-kun!" he complained, "My stomach's growling."

Raito, walking back to the car under the paternal, possessive wing of his father, looked back at L and sighed. The mini-death made an awkward face and followed Kira to the car. Once he was safely in the back seat, Raito cast L an unusual look and coughed.

L recognized it as a failing attempt to hide his derisive laughter.

The psychopomp squinted at him, grimaced, and stuck out his tongue.

Smart Alec…

He crouched in the corner just opposite Raito in the back seat and brooded. His stomach had started growling again. He felt a strange, bubbling feeling in his body which he found increasingly difficult to tolerate. What was it? He searched his mind for the answer. Yet, in all its infinite vastness, L's conscious had no records of any event of this nature.

Troubling…

"Raito-kun," L whined, "My stomach hurts. It's making funny noises and it feels like I ate a bunch of marbles."

Raito gave him a look that said he wouldn't doubt that L had, in fact, eaten a bunch of marbles. He uttered nothing of the sort though and continued glaring thoughtfully at the psychopomp under the guise of looking out the window. It occurred suddenly to L that Raito's father was in the car.

Well, Raito wouldn't have told the mini-death what was wrong with him anyway.

He sighed, seeing that he'd never get an answer going about it the way he was. Perhaps…

Wait.

One of the side-effects of eating too much human food was a mind-numbing pain in the stomach. He'd been having milder pains lately, but this was much, much worse.

Oh my.

"Raito-kun," L gasped, "I think I'm having withdrawals."

Raito sighed, laid his head back on his arms, and slumped smugly in his seat. The corner of L's eye twitched. He should have foreseen this reaction. Yagami-kun never was one for condolences.

L whined to himself and miserably scooted around in the car. He needed something to eat. At the same time, he didn't. Gah! He was addicted to food! This was bad…

The car pulled up in front of the house and L flew out the window. He tore into the house long before Raito had a chance to open his door and mercilessly devoured four cookies. By the time Soichiro walked in the door, the cookies were gone.

L skittered out of the kitchen, feeling more than slightly agitated, and morphed into Raito's bedroom. As he perched on the office chair and chewed fervently on his nails, he heard Raito say he'd be up in his room taking a nap. Seconds later, the pitter-patter of his feet became apparent on the stairway.

Meanwhile, L was forcefully spinning himself in circles. Food. Food! L was addicted to food! What if he turned into a HUMAN for eating their FOOD? On one hand, humans weren't so bad. If he was human, he'd have all the food he wanted. He'd be able to feel what sunlight felt like. He could actually _die_ and have fun doing it.

On the other hand, humans weren't very tolerant of nature. Heat, cold, rain, drought, day, night. They were practically dependent on nature.

And then there was pain. Perhaps even worse than the food withdrawal L had earlier. Pain was decidedly bad. He'd have to keep away from it.

Raito's door creaked open and in walked the man himself. No sooner had he emerged, however, than the door was slammed, Raito was airborne, and then Raito was landing on his bed and not moving for quite some time.

L spun himself in his chair.

Raito seemed stressed.

Stress.

That was another downside to human life. Stress was lurking everywhere. Since L had popped into the human realm, he'd met his share of it. Dread was virtually nonexistent in L's realm. The carefully planned schedule of everyday life made sure of that. L reluctantly concluded that stress was necessary in an exciting life. It was, after all, a part of surprise. When taken in small doses, stress was healthy.

And that was the way it was.

----

Raito was positively exhausted. He'd been interrogated for hours and he missed lunch. Of course, the missing meal could easily be compensated for, but, as Raito stated before, he was positively exhausted.

He was on his bed.

Food was downstairs.

He could have asked Ryuzaki to sneak it up for him, but the psychopomp seemed excessively agitated about something.

Something trivial.

That was certain.

He rolled over on his side, peering suspiciously at the dark, gangly shadow on the office chair which seemed preoccupied with devouring its own fingernails. Raito quirked an eyebrow when Ryuzaki's glassy eyes blinked in his direction. "What's got you so jumpy, Ryuzaki?" he asked.

The mini-death chewed on his thumb once more and chattered, "I think I'm in trouble, Raito-kun."

Raito nodded his head as if he _wasn't_ wholly pissed off with the ambiguity of Ryuzaki's reply. "So," he began slowly, "What sort of trouble are you in?"

"I think I might be turning into a human."

Raito shot up in bed. Turning into a human? Well, this was news.

Wait…

Didn't that mean…

"You won't be able to keep me from _dying_ anymore?" Raito gaped. Ryuzaki gave him a look that said 'oh dear God, help me,' and then sighed heavily and chewed on his thumb again.

Raito, meanwhile, was on the edge of his seat in anticipation. This did affect his fate after all.

"I'm not sure, Raito-kun. I've never been a human before," here Ryuzaki paused. Raito was no longer on the edge of his seat. As a matter of fact, he'd leaned too far over and fallen off. After he righteously picked himself off the floor, he repositioned himself by crouching at the footboard of his bed and stubbornly continuing to be at the edge of his seat.

Ryuzaki apparently took note of this, but oddly never commented about it.

"I think I might be able to keep this from happening if I don't eat anymore food," the mini-death stated simply with his eyes rolled skyward.

"Like you could keep that up," Raito remarked snidely.

Ryuzaki gave him an aloof look, turning his face upward and eyeing Raito down the bridge of his nose. Then he lowered his head and continued staring in a completely different manner.

Raito could only roll his eyes, huff his exasperation, and plunge back down into his mattress. He took a stroll down memory lane. Were there other things Ryuzaki needed to avoid in order to stay a psychopomp? Did Ryuzaki ever tell him about turning human?

"So," Raito drawled, "How exactly do you turn into a human?"

The mini-death gave him an appraising look. He stuck his bottom lip out and squinted. To tell or not to tell? Wasn't that always the question?

"Basically, I have to value something in the human realm more than I value my own realm. It's as simple as that." He started to stutter when Raito said nothing. Hurriedly, he rambled, "Eating too much sugar can get me hooked. Too much human food in my system contributes to the process as well."

Mutter…

Mutter…

Raito nodded thoughtfully. "And how much do you like your realm, Ryuzaki?" he asked like every bit of the psychiatrist he wasn't.

The mini-death eyed him again. Wary, wasn't he?

"I hate it," he said drearily.

Raito quirked an eyebrow. "You hate it?" he clarified, "Then what keeps you tied to it?"

"Fear, mainly," Ryuzaki droned uninterestedly.

Raito blinked.

Ryuzaki, noticing his confusion, elaborated on the subject. "It's been branded into my subconscious that change is bad. A change in form is most definitely bad. Essentially, Raito-kun, I don't like what I don't know."

Raito gave him a look that said he didn't care. And he didn't care. That was the truth.

Ryuzaki blinked once, then drew his eyebrows down and the corners of his lips drooped. He pouted, sighing and grumbling for at least five minutes. Raito let him sigh. He was tired.

Raito disregarded the psychopomp's personal problems and focused on his own. If Ryuzaki turned into a human, he would be part of the human realm.

Mortal.

And Raito could DIE.

Raito blew a frustrated sigh out of his nose. Fuck that. Kira was _not_ going to die anytime soon.

"Ryuzaki," Raito began. The addressed stopped worrying his hair and blinked over hopefully. "Stop eating human food," Kira commanded. Ryuzaki's hair gave the appearance of dropping instantly limp. Raito resisted the urge to invade his personal space, point a finger, and laugh hysterically.

"Raito-kun!" Ryuzaki hissed, "What would _you_ do without food?"

"Well, I'd probably die," Raito said with his shoulders shrugged, "But what do I have you for, eh?"

Ryuzaki frowned vehemently. "Is that what this is about? You don't want me to eat food because then I'll be human. If I'm human, I am a product of this realm, and thus a subject prone to expiration. With myself out of the picture, you would undoubtedly be picked off next. From the moment I walked into your window-"

"Flew into my window."

"-_Flew_ into your window –Now that isn't important, Raito-kun. Let me finish. From the moment I saw you I knew you were shallow, but it seems I've overestimated your sympathy for others."

"Touché."

The mini-death gave Raito a typically level stare. "You really don't care, do you?"

"Not really," Said Raito with a strand of oddly colored reddish hair caught in his gaze.

He heard a helpless huff of air heave itself out of Ryuzaki's lungs and took comfort in assuming that would be the end of things. He was more than content to stare dreamily at a piece of his own, vibrant, shimmering, auburn hair. He'd have to cut it soon. If he let it grow out, he wouldn't be able to see his own reflection in the mirror.

Depressing.

The mini-death was still distractedly pawing at various writing utensils at Raito's desk and chewing on them. Let him chew. Let him worry. Ryuzaki wasn't Raito's problem. If he didn't stop eating himself silly, Kira's might would put a stop to it.

Raito had control.

Complete control.

"Not without me, you don't," droned a voice from the office chair. Raito peered queerly over at the psychopomp to find two black eyes studying him from behind a mess of number-two pencils. He sighed and explained, "You get this peculiar look on your face when you're trying to convince yourself that the world revolves because you command it to. Whether you choose to believe it or not, there is a higher power."

"So God exists, does he?" Raito questioned hotly with his arms across his chest.

"Yes," stated Ryuzaki.

Raito snorted.

"You're only here because He wanted you to be."

Raito's posture straightened and he smirked to himself.

Ryuzaki hissed and slapped himself. "I knew it would go straight to your head," he muttered.

"So," Raito beamed with a flick of the hair, "Why'd he choose me?"

"Right now," remarked Ryuzaki dryly, "I doubt His judgment."

Raito's eye twitched.

"Satan must have slipped something into His ambrosia. That woman was never one to be trusted…"

"And Satan's a woman? I could have guessed," snorted Raito.

"Hm," Ryuzaki droned, "She'd kick your ass."

Raito rolled his eyes. He was never a spiritual man. He didn't care what religion it was, it was all bullshit. Not so bullshit now though. Raito began to wonder whether or not he was on God's good side.

Or worse, Satan's bad side.

Of course, with his last comment, he was probably heading more south by the moment. Would he end up in hell? What was hell like?

"Ryuzaki?" Raito mumbled. "What?" responded the nail-biting psychopomp. "What's hell like?" the Yagami asked out of pure curiosity. Ryuzaki stopped devouring the tips of his fingers and pondered a moment in silence. "Hell is extremely boring." He paused, "Like a Sunday morning in Nigeria with ninety nine percent humidity in a room containing a broken air conditioner, no telephone, no radio, no books, a crooked bed, a leaky faucet, a blinking fluorescent light, daisy-scented air-freshener, and heaps of dead fish."

Raito rubbed at his eyes.

"And it's always overcast, but it never rains."

"Enough," growled Raito.

"I've made my point then, have I?"

"Stop."

"If you want."

The room was silent once more. Ryuzaki had ceased chewing on his nails. This was deemed as an important and positive development to Raito, who was concerned that the psychopomp would somehow bleed to death if he persisted. The silence became overbearing in a surprisingly short period of time, though. Raito peered once more at his lackey of supernatural-ish-ness and said, "What about the shinigami realm? You ever been there?"

"I've heard rumors," Ryuzaki admitted with an incline of the head. "They say it was Satan's knockoff of the psychopomp realm."

"Because she wanted to outdo God at His own game," Raito interrupted.

Out of the corner of his eye, Raito saw Ryuzaki give him an appraising look. "You are correct, Raito-kun."

The brunette snorted like he'd expected to be right.

"She tried to copy Jesus, too."

Raito quirked an eyebrow, "Really?"

"Yes. She failed three times. Eventually she gave up and got herself knocked up."

"Seems a bit… crude."

"But effective, Raito-kun. She's proven herself capable of replicating and twisting God's miracles to her own liking. And the Antichrist is surprisingly good at DDR. It's awful," hummed Ryuzaki.

"It's awesome," hummed Raito.

The mini-death gave him a look.

Raito dwelled in his thoughts for a moment. First off, God was a boy. Satan was a girl. That would explain how they never understood each other in the first place. Satan was tired of playing second fiddle to God and all His wonders, so she outsmarted Him, copied them, and used them to create catastrophes of her own. If she could recreate the psychopomp realm, then could she devise a way to make herself her own Kira as well?

"Ryuzaki," began Raito thoughtfully, "Seeing as how Satan has a knack for knockoffs, do you think she could make another me?"

"Pardon?" coughed Ryuzaki over a bit of eraser.

"Another Kira. An _Anti-_Kira."

Ryuzaki hummed and spun himself around in his chair. "As far as I am informed, the old man keeps that secret under lock and key. He lends Kira the power of divine judgment, probably because He has become delusional in His old age and prefers Bingo to smiting, and allows him to deal justice on whomever he pleases."

Raito grinned.

"Don't let it get to your head, Raito-kun," warned Ryuzaki. He leaned back in his chair, making it creak, and twirled himself back and forth with one corner of the desk. His brow creased in meditation and he brought a museful thumb to his lips. "I suppose," the mini-death crooned, "that she could accomplish such a feat if she desired, but we may never recognize this _Anti_-Kira of yours. She's very smart. For all we know, he could be a perfectly normal person. Satan is very keen to conceal."

"I see," mused Raito as he tossed a pillow into the air and caught it. He lay on his back and contemplated the plaster in the ceiling. He wondered if Mello ever had this many questions.

Mello…

Speaking of whom…

"Ryuzaki?"

"Yes?"

"How did Mello die?"

----

"Oh what a shame," was all that Raito said. He expressed no outward surprise at the mundane nature of Mello's death but the slight quivering of his left big toe. It was because of the scarcity of a reaction that L assumed the Yagami had been deeply shaken up.

After all, it was immensely unexpected that the mighty former Kira would choke on a muffin and die.

"A muffin," Raito repeated with a relaxing rock back into his sheets.

"Yes," confirmed L.

"Chocolate muffin."

"You're quite right."

"With blueberries."

The psychopomp nodded, "With blueberries."

"Wow," said Raito.

"Yes," said L.

Raito's head bobbed in a reflective nod and he licked his lips. L was quite proud of himself. If Raito's personality was anything to live by, he was extremely angry. Currently, he was choosing to express his anger in a passive way. For this, L was measurably grateful.

He'd hate to see Raito act in an irrational way again.

"Raito, honey!"

Ah, dinner. L sniffed the air and drooled. With a smell that thick, he was surprised he hadn't realized it sooner. Wonderful… wonderful… were those pot stickers he smelled? Luscious, garlicky potstickers.

L glanced mournfully down at his stomach. Then, he wiggled around miserably on his chair and whined at Raito. The object of his attention leered impassively at him through the corner of his eye. Of course Raito wouldn't let him eat anything! He was a pig that way.

And the food smelled so good… L could almost taste it!

"Raito-kun…" L whined quietly. The Yagami took no notice of this. He turned the doorknob, opened the door, yelled that he was coming, and shut the door behind him with a soft slam.

L was left to stew in his slobbering misery.

The nerve of that mortal! Leaving him there while he ate his precious, delicious, hot, steaming food…

Dammit.

L was hungry, and since he could turn himself human if he ate too much, Raito wasn't allowing him any food. Troublesome. However, he didn't need Kira's permission in order to sneak food. L allowed himself a devious grin. If no one caught him, he could eat as many pot stickers as he wanted. Better yet, he could see what delectable treats Sayu had in the fridge.

Forget healthy food.

The psychopomp melted into the floor above the kitchen. He could smell Raito's mother's cooking. She always did have a nice food-smell around her. He stealthily poked the upper half of his head through the ceiling. Cooking ingredients lay haphazardly on the counter, remnants of Sayu's cooking endeavors. Noting that the coast was clear, L slunk out of the ceiling and into the refrigerator. He nosed around in the frosty darkness until he sniffed out a wedge of chocolate mousse cake.

Marveling at his luck and skills of confection location, he giggled to himself and swiped the plate up in his fingers. After trying to morph back out of the fridge, he was reminded of the fact that food was material and couldn't be pulled through solid metal. The dish clattered and smashed into the space between the shelves and the door.

"Ah," Ryuzaki withdrew from the refrigerator and scratched through his messy, dark hair, "shit."

If he opened the door, the plate of mousse would fall onto the floor, making quite a bit of noise and ruining his treat at the same time. If he tried to rearrange the plate so he could remove it from the fridge, he ran the risk of being discovered by Raito.

Choices…

Time hardly got a chance to pass before L's stomach made the decision for him. He needed food, and he needed it now. His eyes shifted around the room before he decided to maneuver the dish of mousse back onto the shelf. He morphed into the door and pushed up on the plate. It clinked a bit against the metal edge of the shelf. This alarmed L, who flew back out and listened carefully for footsteps. Hearing none, he hurriedly got back to his work.

He pried the ceramic plate out from the crevice with a careful push and immediately opened the door. There it was, lit up in all it's glory, and it was…

A pile of whipped cream.

…

What?

Had he miscalculated something?

He could swear it was chocolate mousse he smelled.

"Got you."

Ryuzaki whipped around on his toes. There, in the doorway, was a mildly angry-looking Raito Yagami. L accepted his defeat, groaning in submission and silently melting back through the ceiling.

He meandered toward the edge of Raito's bed and sat there. Foiled… L was puzzled and frustrated. All he wanted was a piece of cake. Just a piece of cake! Why was Raito suddenly so fervent in his prevention of L's happiness?

Because he was preserving his own interests before L's.

Preserving his own life.

How selfish.

Minutes later, Raito clomped up the stairs. L was prepared to give him the glare of the century. Raito tapped open the door with one hand and backed into the room, muttering something to his mother about how he had to study.

Study.

Hah.

L was breaths away from converting all his pent up frustration into verbal abuse. However, when Raito turned around, any protest he might have conjured up vanished in the blink of two, sugar-glazed, coal black eyes.

Cake.

Raito had cake.

L followed the ceramic plate topped with spongy, white, pink-frosted goodness with a strand of drool dangling off of his lips. He inhaled a deep, searching breath and found that the pink icing was, in fact, strawberry flavored.

Oh, heaven on a stick.

"Rai-Raito-kun," L stuttered with an anxious index finger in his teeth. The addressed glared impassively at him and waited for the psychopomp to collect his thoughts. "That cake," said L, gesturing to the generous portion of heaven Raito had in his right hand, "wouldn't be for me… would it?"

Raito glanced down at the cake, then back up.

His sweet, juicy lips pressed together and his luscious, pink tongue curled to form one decisive word.

And that word was "No."

L squeezed all the breath held in his lungs out in one forceful squeal of dismay. He thumped his heel on the seat of the chair and chewed on his nails in an especially unhappy way.

Raito gave him a peculiar look and rumbled, "This one is mine," then he brought his other hand out from behind his back, "but this one's yours."

L lit up like a candle. He gleefully sauntered over to Kira, Savior of Sugary Sustenance, and accepted his treat. Raito's cake was bigger, but at the moment, L's eyeballs were too deep in frosting to notice.

----

After seeing Ryuzaki maul his helpless piece of cake, Raito lost his appetite. Or, at least that was the excuse he used. The truth, though Raito would never admit it, was that he hated cake. He'd originally brought one piece just to gloat over how incandescently happy he was, but decided it was a little too much.

The look on Ryuzaki's face would have been priceless, but for some reason completely unknown to him, Raito thought he'd done enough damage to Ryuzaki's nerves for one night.

The Yagami boy rolled his eyes and flopped onto his stomach.

The mini-death was licking the frosting off of each finger with a deafening smack of the lips. Raito glared, annoyed, and snatched up the remote to turn the television on. Not to his surprise, there was a special about the case. Nothing worth noting was said. This greatly angered the mighty Kira, who thought that his magnificence couldn't possibly have fit within the time frame of a mere one minute news segment.

Not coincidentally, halfway around the world in Madrid, a suspected terrorist gave himself up before dying mysteriously of cardiac arrest.

Raito noticed out of the corner of his eye that the mini-death was fidgeting. He turned on his side to see Ryuzaki's eyes fixed on the discarded piece of cake. Raito groaned.

When his attention did not cease, Raito grudgingly turned on his side again and grumbled, "You can have it if you want."

Skeptical eyes peered accusingly at him from a screen of dark, ruffled messiness. "You don't want it, Raito-kun?" asked Ryuzaki.

"I'm not hungry," Kira announced after a moment of hesitation.

Without further ado, the helpless wedge of cake was five feet away and halfway gone. After deciding that two more people would die tomorrow at four-o-clock in the morning, Raito turned his gaze on Ryuzaki. The way he inhaled his cake suggested that he really was, no joke, starving. Raito wondered just how bad these hunger pains of Ryuzaki's were.

"Feel better?' Raito asked dryly as the last of the cake vanished down Ryuzaki's throat. "Yes," said the psychopomp pointedly before licking his fingers again.

"Hm," said Raito.

"I like cake," said Ryuzaki.

"I see."

"And strawberries."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Sayu made these last night."

"I love her cooking."

"I thought you might."

"Tell her she's very good and she should try strawberry shortcake sometime."

"Sure thing," consented Raito. The television buzzed in the background. Ryuzaki seemed content to crouch on his chair and curl his toes around the cushion. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat and pressing his fingers together, satisfied.

Raito rolled his eyes once more.

Gratified by a slice of cake.

How shallow.

In a dark hour of similar melancholy a few nights later, something much more interesting happened.

A news special blipped onto the television. The anchorwoman on the screen was shuffling papers about on a desk, looking flustered.

"We interrupt this program to bring you a globally televised broadcast from Interpol," the woman gulped, coughed, and babbled some more. Raito couldn't believe his eyes. He hopped out of bed, stalked over to his office chair, swept it out from beneath Ryuzaki, and glided over to the television.

Ryuzaki grumbled on the floor before slinking over to Raito's shoulder and peering at the screen.

"Interpol?" the mini-death frowned, "This should be interesting."

The screen cut to a shot of two people, a man and a woman, seated behind desks. The both of them wore suits and dark sunglasses.

The man on the left, whose side of the desk was labeled 'Aiber L. Kaiser,' had impeccable posture and an angular, smirking face characteristic of arrogance. The gaping collar of his shirt said he was very conscious of his good looks as well. His short, blonde hair flowed out behind him like a gelled, flaxen flag and the stubble covering his chin suggested that he was equally at home near a crime scene and a high-class cocktail party. When he removed his sunglasses, Raito took note of his weasel-like eyes. Raito found it odd that they kept glancing at intervals to one side of the screen.

One foe.

Raito's calculating eyes then analyzed the woman sitting next to 'Aiber.' She had her equally blonde, equally straight hair swept behind one ear. She fidgeted slightly in her seat, but otherwise seemed relaxed. Raito likened her to a Barbie Doll. Her skin complexion was flawless, her face was soft and her features seemed to flow comfortably into one another. Her lips were painted rose red and she smashed them together several times. Her side of the desk was labeled "Wedy M. Rose."

Two foes.

And yet… something seemed amiss.

His father, Soichiro, often mentioned the codenames of two top detectives. He said their work was unparalleled. They solved cases together that could be pieced together by no other organization.

They were called Aiber and Wedy.

A and W.

Raito simply could not take seriously two top-notch detectives whose preferred initials spelled the name of a brand of root beer.

Anyway, the possibility of wiping out two of Kira's greatest potential foes was overwhelming, but something wasn't right. Something about the two figures on the screen was terrifically out of place.

Ryuzaki hummed something off to his side and took up permanent residence over Raito's shoulder. "Intriguing," the mini-death crooned, "What could they be thinking, I wonder?"

They spoke.

"I am Wedy M. Rose," said the woman.

"And I am Aiber L. Kaiser," added the man in a clipped tone of voice, "We are the sole people capable of mobilizing police in any country."

The woman nodded strangely, "As you well know, criminals have been the target of our world's latest and most appalling case of mass-murder."

Appalling? Her _English accent_ was appalling. Kira was doing the world a favor! Criminals were disappearing one by one. Perhaps the world in its infinite weakness was not ready for Kira's divine judgment. Raito released a slow, low, reverberating growl.

Let them whine. They'd see soon enough.

"You're getting angry, Raito-kun," Ryuzaki warned into his ear. Raito only growled at him to shut up.

"These atrocities must be stopped whatever the cost, and we assure you, they will," continued Aiber. "'Kira' as the murderer is called, will be stopped."

"Stopped?" Raito scoffed. He laughed darkly, cracking his knuckles and leaning back in his throne. "How are you, a foolish, mundane, run-of-the-mill _human being_ going to stop me?" He suddenly lurched forward in the chair and waved his right hand in front of the illuminated, electronic faces of his enemies. "You see this? I can _kill_ you as easy as I can snap my fingers! How can you possibly catch me? What proof do you have? With a weapon like this, what evidence can I possibly leave!?"

"Eh, Raito-kun," came the voice of a cringing mini-death, "Perhaps be a bit quieter."

He didn't listen.

"I knew this would happen sometime," Raito hissed, grinding his teeth viciously, "You're trying to turn the public against me, aren't you? You're trying to psyche me out, aren't you!? Well I'm above your petty tricks! I am above your very level of existence! You fools! You groveling, sniveling, feather-brained fools!"

"Raito-kun!" Ryuzaki yelled. Raito turned to face him, grinning wickedly. "I knew this would happen," he repeated as if he were out of his mind. "I knew it from the start, Ryuzaki." The psychopomp nodded absently, "Yes, but I warn you, don't do anything rash. You may regret any decisions you make in haste."

Raito blew a puff of air out of his lungs in a guttural 'harumph!' Who was Ryuzaki to tell him how to think? He couldn't make any mistakes. It was _impossible_ for him to make mistakes.

Raito tested the fingers on his right hand.

The face of the man suddenly grew softer, "Kira, if you are watching, please, pay attention."

Oh, he was paying attention alright.

Aiber droned on. "We think we may understand why you're doing these things. We know your intentions are for the better, but no matter what the reason, killing is _evil_."

Raito blinked and fell back into his chair.

… _Evil?_

_Raito was… evil?_

No. No! That couldn't have been right. Punishing the unjust was the very definition of righteousness! In order for a pristine new forest to flourish, a purging wildfire was needed to burn the old, decayed, diseased, overgrown flaws of the last one! The immoral, the vulgar, the bloodthirsty; all of them had to be erased.

Those who obstructed the dealing of justice were criminals as well. They had to be eliminated.

Every last one.

"You idiots," Raito hissed, shaking with rage, "Maybe if you'd have been smarter, we could have played a nice game of cat and mouse. But from the moment you showed your faces, you breathed your last! For your insults and your foolishness, death is your sentence!"

As Wedy rambled on about the immorality of Kira's actions, Kira's fingers smote against each other, snuffing out the flickers of two candles at once. Seconds later, two agonized, convulsing bodies hit the surface of the desk.

Dead.

Raito snickered, then flew into a full-blown maniacal laugh. What idiots! So this was the best the world could dish out at him, was it? Kira, God of Death, had just eliminated his most threatening foes within minutes of seeing their faces.

"Raito, Raito, Raito…" He heard Ryuzaki laugh tensely, farther behind him than before. Raito spun his chair around and sneered, "What the fuck are you laughing about?"

"Oh, details," fretted Ryuzaki.

Details? What details?

"What details?" Raito demanded hotly. Ryuzaki shook his head, "Oh no, Yagami-kun, you would surely kill me if I told you. No, no…"

"I'll kill you if you don't," Raito threatened.

"I suppose I have no choice in the matter, but you must promise me not to worry yourself about it."

"Whether or not I take what you say into consideration depends entirely on the gravity of the situation, Ryuzaki."

"And therein lies the problem."

Raito frowned deeply. "Just tell me what the fuck you want to tell me!"

"I don't want to tell you now," Ryuzaki stated with a thumb in his teeth.

"But you _will_," insisted Raito.

"Watch the television, Raito-kun. I suspect it will broadcast something very soon. When you process the information, let me know and I will fill you in."

Raito's gaze shot back to the screen.

Two men were dragging the dead bodies off of the desk.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Suddenly, a caption appeared at the bottom of the screen and with it, a voice. "We couldn't believe it, but we've seen with our own eyes…"

What… What was this? A joke? The voice was digitally cut up and recombined as if to make it completely unrecognizable. What was more, it referred to itself as 'we.'

"Watch carefully, Raito-kun," said Ryuzaki, "and try not to get angry."

"This broadcast was meant to test a theory of ours, but never in our wildest dreams had we expected an outcome of this nature," continued the voice, "Kira… you can actually kill without physical contact…"

Raito lost all his will to sit up straight. He fell back into his chair like a limp noodle. He'd been played. Played like a fool.

Dammit!

"The two people you have just seen were convicted criminals. They were scheduled to be killed one week from today. Both of them volunteered to help us in discovering more about Kira. May their souls rest in peace."

The voice changed suddenly in tempo and in mood. "Kira! The convicts you killed were incarcerated and sentenced in secret! News of their arrest was nonexistent. There were no records of them on the news or on the internet."

Raito slammed his fist into the side of his desk.

Really, really loud.

"Raito-honey?" the door slid open to reveal Sachiko's worried face.

"Yyeeessssss!" Raito hissed, disguising his immense pain and humiliation as elation, "They just caught Kira red-handed, mom!"

Sachiko smiled with relief, "Oh, honey, that's wonderful!"

"Isn't it?" Raito half-squeaked, bordering on tears, "He screwed up, mom! He screwed up like the jackass he is!"

Sachiko nodded, grinning from ear to ear. "I think we'll all sleep better tonight. You take care of yourself, sweetie."

"Yeah, mom, I will," promised Raito with his toes curled tightly around one wheel of his chair.

As soon as she left, Raito dropped face-down onto his desk and crossed his arms over his head. He was in pieces. He'd screwed up so badly, there was no repairing the damage.

"I failed," Raito hissed as the bridge of his nose started to sting, "I screwed up."

In the background, Raito heard the sound of two digitized voices taunting him. "Kill us! Go ahead!"

"What are you waiting for? Go ahead and try, Kira!"

"The damage is done, Raito-kun," mentioned a melancholic voice from the direction of Raito's bed. The exhausted, deceived Kira glanced mournfully behind him. How humiliating. He could tell by the annoying, tingling pressure in his nose and the heaviness of his eyes that he was coming dangerously close to tears.

"The damage isn't life-threatening yet, Raito-kun," Ryuzaki, who was in a terrifically good mood, pointed out, "Perhaps you could use the publicity you've just gained as an advantage."

Raito rolled his eyes away and thought.

Yes…

Yes.

Yes! That could work! Now that people knew Kira was no ordinary human being, he could manipulate their fear and confusion to his liking. An unintentional publicity stunt. That was what it was. "Glad to be of service," mentioned Ryuzaki with an evident smile in his voice.

"Kira!" the television addressed.

Raito looked up optimistically from the wood surface of his desk and into the television. "In recompense for the valuable information you have just given us, we will now return the favor."

He listened.

"Firstly, at the beginning of this broadcast, it was announced that the event would be televised globally. That was a lie."

Raito groaned and dug his fingers into his eyes.

"This event was only broadcast in the Kanto region of Japan. Why the Kanto region? The police missed this, but your first victim was a man who took control of an office building in Yokohama. This was televised only in Japan. Being the area of highest population density, we broadcast in Kanto first. That you responded within this region was pure luck."

Raito sighed, willing the pain away from his face. He'd have to look for a way to use their information to redeem himself. He knew not how, but it was a necessity. Perhaps he had to be more cautious in the future. One valuable piece of information that A and W had unwillingly given to him was that there were flaws in his power. Without physical evidence, they would still find something.

The voice changed again. "We, A and W-"

A can of root beer suddenly wormed its way into Raito's mind's eye and he couldn't help snickering-

"-are confident that we will bring you to justice."

_Justice?_ Raito _was_ Justice!

"It would interest us greatly to know exactly how you kill, but we can find that out after we've caught you."

Such confidence from mere mortals!

"Until we meet again, Kira."

And the television fuzzed out. Raito was no longer inclined to watch it. He clicked it off. "Ryuzaki," he sighed soberly as he turned slowly around in his chair, "Tell me how you knew I'd made a mistake."

The addressed stopped fiddling with his toes and peered at Raito with wide, intelligent, deep, black eyes. "Are you angry?" he asked. The brunette nodded that yes, he was angry. Ryuzaki nodded as well. "As is to be expected. Are you angry enough to do something to harm yourself?"

"I'm not sure yet," Raito mused, taking deep breaths to clear his mind.

"Mm," hummed the mini-death, "I have a great eye for detail, Raito-kun. I notice a great many things any human being might miss." Raito listened, not offering his input on the subject. Evidently taking note of this, Ryuzaki droned on. "Did you notice anything odd about the two people on the television and their surroundings?"

Raito closed his eyes and thought a moment. "The woman kept squirming in her seat and the man's attention was focused to one side of the screen." When he opened his eyes, Ryuzaki was staring him down very intently. "You're very intelligent, Raito-kun," he praised, "but you didn't link your observations together. Did you notice anything odd about the side of the screen the man stared at?"

Raito organized his thoughts and found nothing. "No," he admitted.

"You didn't see any shadows? You didn't see any reflection in the woman's glasses when the camera zoomed in on her face?"

"No."

"Judging from the shadows cast onto the desk by the paper labels, the light source was from the right. The man kept staring to his right. There was a light spot in the right lens of the woman's glasses and a dark shadow on the right side of the wall, both of which closely resembled the shape of a man with a rifle."

Raito's eyes widened. He glanced up at Ryuzaki again. How did he notice all that?

"There was a man with a gun standing to the right of the camera and to the left of the primary light source, casting a slight shadow on the right side of the wall. If you had seen this, you could have assumed that the two people were being held there against their will. Would the world's two most prestigious detectives be held against their will?" Ryuzaki reasoned with his thumb in his mouth.

"No," inferred Raito. He reflected Ryuzaki in the way he suddenly stuck his thumbnail between his teeth and bit it. Raito started to laugh. "They messed up just as much as I did. I just couldn't see it…" He tapped the fingers on his injured hand against the side of his desk. "They have flaws, Ryuzaki! They aren't as high and mighty as their theatrics, huh?"

Ryuzaki nodded.

"Do you want a piece of cake, Ryuzaki?" Raito asked suddenly.

The psychopomp looked shocked. "Yes, Raito-kun," he nodded feverishly, "I do."

With that, Raito pushed from his mind the fact that Ryuzaki could have informed him of his observations sooner and left in search of a piece of cake.

----

L was glad.

Somehow, against all odds, he'd brightened the sudden dark blotch in Kira's life. With any luck, Raito had learned his lesson and the two detectives he hated so much had very little information pertaining to his exact location.

L hummed contentedly to himself as he perched in his usual spot, watching Raito sleep. It was creepy, yes, but L was full of cake and equally full of pride in himself. As such, he couldn't bring himself to feel embarrassed.

It had taken Raito longer than usual to fall asleep, but it was justified. His mind was at work, worrying and figuring. Trying to patch up his mistakes. Trying to convince himself that he was safe.

And Raito _was_ safe.

As long as L was there, any detective, greatest in the world or not, would have to come through hell to lay a finger on him. And if they did manage to lay a finger on him… well… L would do something. Somehow, it was impossible for him to pick things up and hit people with them with the intent of doing harm. However, if Raito's life was threatened, L would find a way.

The aforementioned Yagami boy quivered slightly in his sleep. L looked up at the clock and smiled. It was about this time every other night when Raito had an entertaining bout of sleep-talk. L wondered what was going through his head this time.

Much to his surprise, Raito sat up in his bed, eyes glazed and shoulders slipping. He looked off into nowhere in particular and muttered, "They aren't here, are they?"

Oh goody!

L clapped his hands together, thrilled. A conversation! This happened only once before on a night before an especially important test. He'd asked L what score he got. L replied that he hadn't taken the test yet. Raito looked deeply confused and asked him what he meant. To this, the psychopomp replied that he should go back to sleep. Raito stubbornly refused and asked him once again what score he'd gotten.

L said he hadn't gotten a score.

Then, Raito had nodded as if it was perfectly fine with him that he had no score. He fell back into his sheets after that and didn't say another word.

And for some reason, he'd taken a liking to referring to L as 'Dave.'

Hm.

This conversation, L knew, would be a blast. "They who?" he asked.

"I don't know," Raito replied hazily.

"You're confused?" asked L.

"I don't know," said Raito.

"You're confused," said L.

Raito screwed up his face, blinked slowly, swayed once as if to fall over, then righted himself again. "I smell root beer," he mumbled nostalgically. "There is no root beer, Raito-kun," L corrected.

"There is," said Raito as if he'd stake his life on that there was, in fact, root beer lurking somewhere within the shadows of his room.

"What kind of root beer is it, Raito-kun?"

"A and W Root Beer."

And there it was.

Relevancy.

"Raito-kun," reasoned L, "They have no idea where you are. You are perfectly safe."

"They know," Raito argued like a drunk who'd lost his designated driver.

"They don't."

"They know I'm in Kyoto. They're going to find me out," mumbled Raito sleepily.

"Go to sleep," suggested L.

Raito's lopsided scowl deepened and his long, thin, elegant eyelashes dropped lower. "Can't sleep," he muttered, "The root beer will get me."

"You're sleeping now," L pointed out, hoping that, through his delirium, Raito would see sense. Predictably, Raito argued with him again. "I'm not sleeping, Dave," he slurred intelligently.

"What do you have on your mind, exactly?" L asked in the most friendly way he could.

"If they get me, I'll die. I don't want to die, Dave."

"No one wants to die," reasoned L.

"Some people do," persisted Raito.

"Go to sleep."

"I'll die."

"You won't."

"I will."

L sighed, rolled his eyes up to the heavens, and cast the ceiling a hurt look. He was arguing with a mule. Perhaps a compromise would be in order.

"What would you like in exchange for going to sleep?" asked L.

"A biplane," said Raito. Then he squinted slightly, looked down at his sheets, and said, "No." He rolled his head back up and chewed on his bottom lip. L saw an opportunity to take advantage of Raito's childish state. He padded across the floor and sat at the foot of Raito's bed. The honey-eyed citizen of la-la land blinked in an attempt to focus his gaze on the invader of his personal space.

"What say you I sit here and keep watch," suggested L, "Then you can go to sleep."

"Mmm…" mumbled Raito. He turned the idea over in his head several times, marking each revolution with a bob of the head and a droop of the eyes. Without further ado, his eyes closed and the top of his body bent abruptly forward.

L took it as a yes.

As Raito sat there, bent over himself and in complete, ignorant bliss of being so, L mulled over his future. If he was going to protect Raito from death, there were certain limits he had to set for himself.

Firstly, he would have to inform Raito right away if he noticed anything fishy around him. The 'that's for me to know and you to find out' would have to stop. He would also… a gulp… have to give up… food.

A little bit.

What hurt was a crumb, eh?

A crumb… per day… Maybe two.

Or a cake a week…

He could manage it.

But there was one factor L had absolutely no control over. And it scared him! All his life, L had looked at his world as the most mediocre of places. It was boring and pointless. Yet, in order to stay a psychopomp, he had to value his own realm more than anything.

He was beginning to value something else more and more every day.

That thing was annoying, stubborn, proud, vain, vulnerable, beautiful, and had a deep, mesmerizing voice which liked to call him 'Dave.'

It would be his downfall.

It had liked his company enough that evening, but who knew when it would focus its one-track mind back on world domination?

It was a misguided force of justice.

It was Raito Yagami.

_His_ Raito Yagami.

Perhaps it was a trial. Perhaps this whole 'Kira' deal was a game. How long could L keep himself from denouncing his life and becoming human? How long could one egomaniacal human last in a world who hated him?

How long could L keep him alive?

L snorted through his nose and realized that he couldn't keep Raito alive very long when he was constantly thinking about him.

Okay. Room… beige colored room at home. One window. One bed. One computer. One cup of coffee.

A thousand cookie-cutter houses.

One that was his. With one yard. One very green yard. One garden. One kitchen. One faded denim-ish sofa. One Raito…

One Raito…

ROOM.

BEIGE COLORED ROOM!

Window. Bed. Computer. Coffee. Cookie cutter. Raito. Yard. House. Raito. Garden lawn kitchen sofa coffee computer bed cookie-cutter-yard-house-window!

Raito.

L was going to have a hard night.

----

Chibi Raito: SnoooOOOOoooOoooore…

Chibi L: House window bed computer coffee cookie cutter yard house garden lawn kitchen sofa coffee computer bed cookie cutter yard green house window window window window window window...

Chibi Misa: -pokes Raito in the eye-

Me: Well? Was it worth it? Did your wait pay off?

Chibi L: Window window window window window window…

Me: Misa, he's stuck. Step on his toes.

Chibi Misa: Okay! –stomps L's toes-

Chibi L: EEEeeYYyyaaaaaah!

Chibi Raito: ShUt Up dAvE! D8

Me: Granted, a ton of weird shit happened in this chapter at the end, but that's because I was up late and I had dumplings for dinner. The romance bunnies and the plot bunnies are going at it in my head. The plot bunnies, though higher in number, are slowly being beaten down. I'm hoping I can fix a truce between the two before things get ugly. Have sympathy for my nerves.

Chibi Raito: Snooorrree…

Chibi L: Tell Swirly what you thought. Tell her what a bad bitch she is for making you wait.

Me: Quiet, you.

Chibi Misa: Review, review, review!


	7. Trouble in Eden

**DS**

**Disclaimer: **Just you wait.

Me: School is… almost… out…

Chibi L: By the time you post this chapter, school _will_ be out.

Me: So true! Then I won't have to wake up on Mondays for another three months.

Chibi Raito: I wish I could take a summer vacation…

Me: Too bad. You're my slave, and I am a voyeur. Do you know what that means?

Chibi Raito: Fucking shit D:

Me: Exactly.

Chibi L: I want a vacation too! And cake. I want cake.

Chibi Misa: No cake for you!

Chibi L: -cries-

Chibi Misa: No cake and no vacationing! You know what that adds up to? Another crack-chapter for you to enjoy!

Me: Aw, come on. It's not all crack…

Chibi Misa: Read, review, and relax.

**D S 7**

L turned the concept over in his head. The situation was highly improbable, but not impossible. It was a feat attempted by many and mastered by few. L was in awe.

Raito Yagami had fallen asleep during class.

With his eyes open.

Despite the rarity of such a scene, the reason behind it was very practical. Raito had been staying up especially late for the past few days thinking, figuring, and playing his part in the vicious psychological warfare between himself and his assailants. L approved of Raito's dedication, but that didn't stop him from nudging him to bed every night. He needed sleep.

L did not.

The only way he'd been able to get the auburn-haired human out of his office chair was to convince him that L would do all the figuring. Raito gave him a scrutinizing look before grumbling an affirmative and hitting his mattress like a ton of bricks.

L lived up to his word. All night he perched on Raito's footboard and chewed on his thumb. He'd come up with thousands of ways to give Raito's pursuers the slip, then trash them and discard them. He found every idea of his to be mundane and generally useless, as another problem would be presented directly after the first one was solved.

In the time between L's relentless problem-solving lapses, the way Raito's lips parted as he breathed became extremely interesting. Two luscious, pink petals of a Sakura blossom. L never got tired of watching him. Back in the present, he slapped himself and set about stomping around in midair. He was _not_ supposed to think about Raito in that way. It was distracting and it was dangerous.

But still…

It was difficult. L's affection was growing exponentially by the hour and the object of his attention was sitting right there, in the desk next to him, with his beautiful face pillowed on one arm.

Asleep.

With his eyes open.

L made a distressed squeal, exhaled through his nose, and went about scooting around on the floor. Two minutes of that and he was wound-up to the point of insanity.

However, L came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be in his best interest or Raito's if he made a fool of himself. He needed to keep his cool. With a deep lungful of air, L resolved to perch precariously on the corner of the empty desk beside Raito's and stay still. He occupied his time with scanning the sky outside for anything that vaguely resembled a shinigami. Nothing caught his eye but a few wispy clouds and a flock of birds.

His vigil was unexciting, but L was overcome with a sense of something akin to pride. He could hold his own against a shinigami. He could save Raito's life if he saw one coming.

As if on cue, something very scraggly looking came floating out of his peripheral vision. L raised an eyebrow and glanced back down at Raito, whose eyes were still open. It suddenly occurred that the unblinking nature of his eyes was not at all healthy. His corneas would dry out and then… well… it would be painful. L decided to wake him up. He reached down and nudged one steel leg of the desk with his foot.

The slight scoot was enough to send Raito into a controlled fit. He raised his head a few inches, tensed, then blinked and rubbed his eyes with a groan. He glared accusingly at L for a split second before focusing his red eyes on the shadow in the tree outside. Raito buried his eyes in the crook of one elbow and hissed, "What did I miss?"

"Something about psychology," L ventured, "But you already know enough about that, I assume."

Raito grinned smugly from beneath his arm. L rolled his eyes and reminded himself never to say anything relating to Raito's intellect again.

Another groggy moment passed and Raito asked suddenly, "How long's it been there?"

L nodded in thought, taking Raito to be inquiring about the shinigami. He peered at it for a while. It didn't look like Ryuk. It looked more like a moth whose head was wrapped up like a mummy's. Odd.

"I woke you up when I saw it," L mentioned, "Two minutes."

Raito nodded into his desk. "It's not Ryuk, is it?"

"No," affirmed L.

The brunette hummed and sighed, rubbing at his eyes again and muttering curses to himself. L grimaced. He should have known better than to let Raito sleep that long.

"Yagami-kun!"

Raito sat at attention instantly. Equally as quickly, there were multitudes of eyes glittering intently at him. "Yes sir?" he muttered. The teacher pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. "We can't have our star student sleeping in class."

"No, sir," Raito sighed.

The teacher took a long, awkward pause. He sniffled, mustache sweeping across his upper lip like a broom, and readjusted his glasses. "See me after class," he commanded before continuing with his lesson.

Raito exhaled a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. L nibbled sympathetically on his thumb. Mortals had it hard.

Raito especially.

How many mortals were pressured with the burdens of being unusually smart, Kira, _and_ extremely good looking?

Few.

Very few.

Two actually, but L found Mello to be more creepy than aesthetically pleasing.

Raito was eyeing the thing outside the window now. He scrunched his face up and snorted disapprovingly at it. "What do you think?" L asked while giving the shinigami, which had now begun to fidget, a scrutinizing eye.

Raito lowered his head onto his desk and muttered secretively, "Small. Timid. Stupid. We can deal."

L agreed. The mummy-bug looked not in the least bit intimidating. Quite the opposite actually. With a final sweep of the eyes over its person, L located no Death Note in its possession. Since it was no immediate threat, L gave it the cold shoulder.

Raito, seeming to interpret L's actions, focused his attention elsewhere as well.

The class ended rather abruptly and, as L expected, Raito was waved into the hall. The door slammed as the psychopomp was halfway through. He alighted on a nearby garbage can and watched the scene unfold.

Raito leaned casually against the wall, yawning once, and then said, "What is it?"

The teacher pushed his glasses up again and said, "Yagami-kun, I am under strict instructions to inform the police if anything seems the slightest bit wrong with you. Now tell me, have you been getting enough sleep lately?"

Raito sighed, "No, sir."

"Mm…" hummed the teacher, "Why not?"

"Worrying," he mentioned with his eyes to the floor.

The teacher nodded. "About what?"

Raito looked him straight in the face and lied, "The college entrance exams are creeping up on me and… I still don't know if Kira still wants to… you know… _get_ me."

L raised an eyebrow at how open Raito was about being the 'only survivor.' Of course, it was no secret. The media had been all over it, despite the police force's attempts to shrug them off.

"Hmm…" The teacher tapped at his chin, "I'll inform them of your concerns. In the mean time, worrying will do nothing to prevent an attack."

Raito rolled his eyes, "Yes sir."

L snorted. As if _that_ comment would do him any good. The teacher may have been a professor of psychology, but he was presumably mystified by social interaction. The social caterpillar patted Raito on the shoulder and escorted him back in the direction of the room.

The teen glanced woefully at L before forming a pistol with his fingers, sticking them in his mouth, rolling his eyes back, and making a mock-gagging movement. L snickered at such a remarkable and rare display of playfulness from Raito. The stress must have been getting to him.

Raito was whisked into the room with L hot on his heels. He dragged himself back to his chair and sulked there until the next class started. Meanwhile, L busied himself with watching the shinigami out the window. It was still sitting there on its tree branch and it seemed to be debating with itself on what to do. It shuffled about, fluttered its arms, and barked at itself in confusion.

The scene had almost lost L's attention when something slightly less mundane happened.

Ryuk appeared.

The first shinigami shimmied over to Ryuk and the two of them started talking. L snuck outside and strained his ears.

"…like he's staring at me."

"Dude, he _is_ staring at you!"

"What?"

"He could see me too. I guess I'm not surprised though. Nice guy. Fun to talk to until you make him mad. Then he's hilarious."

"So… he's not as bad as I hear?"

"Oh, he can be when he wants to. Thought I tried to kill him once. That made him nasty."

L quirked an eyebrow. They were talking about Raito. Eager to hear what had them so excited, he listened in longer.

"I dunno… I think I want him gone."

Okay. _Now_ they had his attention.

"Gone? Hyuk, hyuk, why? He's fun to watch."

"Well, I don't know. What if this ends up being like when that one blonde guy started killing all the humans?"

"If it gets to that point, we can always try muffins."

"Muffins?"

"Yeah. Chocolate blueberry muffins."

L rolled his eyes.

"What do muffins have to do with anything?"

"That's how we got rid of the last one."

L's eyes bulged. Got… rid… of… What? Then, something clicked inside L's head. Choking on a muffin was a very un-Mello thing to do. Did that mean… he was killed?

By a shinigami?

L's conscious was in the middle of cheering and screaming at once. On the plus side, yay! Mello was gone! On the negative, that meant that somehow, Near was unable to get to him in time. That didn't make sense, seeing as how the both of them were in the psychopomp realm when it happened. Mello had mastered the art of transporting himself to and from both worlds. Hence, he had jurisdiction over the life and death of humanity for a very long time.

Maybe… there were modes of death that L couldn't save Raito from.

Angered, L gritted his teeth and promptly approached the two conversing shinigami. "I couldn't help overhearing," he said coolly, "about Mello."

The bandaged shinigami squeaked and nearly fell off of its branch. Ryuk only blew a puff of stale air at him and said, "You heard that?"

"Yes," said L, "I thought you said you didn't know much about him."

"Dang," mumbled Ryuk boredly. This led L to the conclusion that the information slip was intentional. However, Ryuk wasn't a smart cookie. This drastically lowered the probability that the shinigami was giving him a nudge.

The other shinigami scrambled onto its branch and growled to itself. Ryuk and L both gave it glances. The black shinigami scratched the back of his head and breathed, "Oi, guess I should introduce you guys, eh? Psycho-ma-doohickey, this is Sidoh." One of Sidoh's spindly black fingers waved in a pathetic hello. "Sidoh, this is… er… what did you say your name was?"

"Ryuzaki," L deadpanned.

"Ryuzaki," continued Ryuk, "He's Kira's pet."

L's eye twitched. He didn't give his enemies an inkling of a hint that the comment bit at him, though. Instead, he crossed his arms in defiant silence and glared at the shinigami down the bridge of his nose.

"So who was it?" L demanded flatly. Ryuk gave him a look and belched, "Who?"

"Which one of you killed Mello?"

Ryuk scratched his head stupidly. "Was it Rem? Naw, couldn't a' been. Jealous maybe? Or Justin? I can't remember which. Gook! Maybe it was Gook. Naw. He's too busy gambling."

L sighed. "So it wasn't one of you?"

"Nope," belched Ryuk.

The psychopomp gave up. He eyed Sidoh watchfully, sizing him up. A shinigami without a Death Note was harmless, but L couldn't afford to let his guard down yet. Come to think of it… "Where's your Death Note?" L asked.

Sidoh shuffled his feet and fidgeted, "I don't know, exactly. One day it was there, the next, it was gone! So I'm looking here, in the human world."

The whole time, L registered the background noise of Ryuk's clumsy, breathy laughter.

----

Raito's feet hurt.

He positively _hated_ it when his feet hurt. Not only did his feet hurt, but his back and shoulders hurt as well.

Why?

Raito was trucking a backpack full of studying aids to his house. That was why. He could have taken the bus. He could have taken the subway. So why? Why on God's green earth had he decided to walk home?

"It looks heavy," commented Ryuzaki.

Raito turned around and gave him a sardonic smile. "Thank you, Ryuzaki, thank you."

The psychopomp's panda-eyes darkened and he scowled. "I'm only trying to strike up a conversation, Raito-kun."

"And you're doing a very good job of it," Raito muttered, shifting the weight of his backpack from one shoulder to the other. Ryuzaki stopped him right there, blocking his way with a scowl on his face. "You know," he said, "It wouldn't kill you to be nicer once in a while."

Raito leered warily at him. Why was Ryuzaki getting in his face about it all of the sudden? "You have a problem with the way I act, Ryuzaki?" he asked dangerously. The mini-death didn't take the hint. Or maybe he did, but he didn't care.

"Yes," Ryuzaki announced. Raito snorted at him, slightly less confident than before. The mini-death hadn't talked to him in that particular tone of voice since he'd caught Ryuk and himself conversing about Mello. Nevertheless, Raito refused to be intimidated. "Whoa there," he taunted, "Take that stick out of your ass before you hurt yourself."

"Check yourself before you wreck yourself," L bit back.

"That comeback left the building like, fifteen years ago. Besides, you're saying it in the wrong accent, dumbass."

"Would you like to argue with me?" L asked warningly, arms across his chest.

Raito quirked an indignant eyebrow at him and shook his head in exasperation. "What is _with_ you?"

"Just thought I'd input my opinion, Raito-kun."

Raito eyed him. "Yeah, well, when I want your opinion, I'll give it to you."

If it was possible, Ryuzaki's eyes darkened even further.

"Honestly!" Raito sharpened his defenses in preparation for a stalemate. "I act like this all the time." He searched the psychopomp for a response. When he got none, he was forced to venture his own guesses. "I saw you talking with those shinigami in the tree outside of class. Is that what this is about?"

"No."

"Then what? What's with the sudden outburst?"

Raito was able to breathe a sigh of victory when Ryuzaki's shoulders slumped tiredly. He didn't say a word. Just dragged himself out of the way.

Raito flicked his hair righteously and marched forward for another few yards. He was grateful that their brief clashing of wills lasted only so long. Two blocks later, Ryuzaki's mutterings coupled with the pain in his body pulled him off the sidewalk. He couldn't walk any further. Through shear power of will, Raito was able to drag himself and his backpack into the nearest coffee shop. He dropped his backpack next to a comfortable-looking upholstered chair and dropped himself in a similar manner into the chair.

He sighed, exhausted, and slouched in his seat. Raito draped one arm over his eyes, welcoming the pressure and relaxing somewhat. He was on his last emotional ropes right now. The last thing he needed was Ryuzaki ragging on him about his attitude.

When he had done a considerable amount of deep breathing exercises, he peeled his arm away from his eyes and blinked. The coffee shop was a cozy size. The lighting was dim, but just so that it wasn't hard on the eyes. It was a soft light. Relaxing. The chairs were a reddish-brown and their cushions were an earthy green. There were a few leather sofas in a corner and a low, circular coffee table around which they seemed to gravitate. The counter was located at the far end, a small, illuminated sign nearby advertising a special mocha. The floor was dyed concrete.

Raito liked it.

The various tables across the room were populated sparsely with people, many of which carried laptops. One man sat in the corner with a stack of limited edition books from the book shop across the street.

And here he was. Raito Yagami. Backpack full of studying material.

He felt right at home.

As was predictable, Ryuzaki had been irresistibly drawn to the small glass case of coffee cakes near the counter. Raito had no intention of buying him one.

Aloofly, Raito turned quickly toward his backpack, eyes closed in a snooty way, and proceeded to draw piles of books out and place them on the table. He opened one book up, slumped forward in his chair, and thumbed boredly through the text.

Honestly, he didn't know why he studied. What good would it do him? He was practically guaranteed a spot on the police force, so he didn't need to worry about going to college to get a job. His plans for the future had also been drastically altered. Who needed a college education when he could kill people for fun? When he became god of the human realm, he'd demand tribute. It was an easy way to make plenty of money quickly. But hey, who needed tribute when he could already have whatever he wanted?

That was a good plan.

Raito decided to get himself a cup of coffee.

He got out of his chair, moseyed on up to the counter, and said, "One cup of black coffee," while pulling change out of his pockets. He counted his money, glanced over at the case of coffeecake, and realized that he had enough for a piece of cake as well.

But…

He didn't like cake.

Ryuzaki did.

He caught the gaze of one sulking, drooling mini-death stewing in his own misery. He looked hopeless. Just as well, thought Raito, for blowing up in his face like that.

But…

Well, Raito wasn't going to do anything else with his change. He wasn't mean… Really, he wasn't. He was just in a… perpetual bad mood. Ryuzaki looked positively depressed. Cake would cheer him up. That way, Raito wouldn't have to deal with him later.

But…

If he gave Ryuzaki cake, he might turn human. Raito rolled his eyes. What the hell. If it got Ryuzaki off of his back for a day, he could manage.

"Anything else for you, sir?" asked the lady at the counter.

"Yeah," said Raito absently, "I want one of those coffeecakes over there. The one with the strawberry on it."

Ryuzaki's eyes lit up in disbelief. Against all of Raito's attempts to fight it off, his lips twisted into a twitching, awkward smile.

He dumped his change on the counter, swiped the receipt, squelched his ridiculous grin, and sailed aloofly over to his table as if he _hadn't_ given into Ryuzaki's silent begging. He tossed the paper plate onto the table and settled into his chair with his coffee. "Thank you, Raito-kun," hummed the content mini-death as he snapped the cake up. Raito rolled his eyes and buried his face in his book. "Next time, check to see if anyone's looking before you do that," he hissed under his breath.

Ryuzaki blinked, crumbs still lingering on his lips, then gulped. "Sorry," he muttered. "Hmph," huffed Raito.

It suddenly occurred to Kira that his family would be worried if he wasn't home on time. He sifted through the pockets in his backpack until he found his cellular phone. Flipping it open, he dialed his number and listened.

Beeep…

Seriously. It was more of a beep than a ring.

Beeep… Beeep…

Pick up, dammit!

Bee- "City morgue, you stab 'em, we slab 'em!"

"Hey Sayu," Raito smiled. "You know, you shouldn't joke around like that."

"Awww!" Whined her mechanically remixed voice, "But it's _fuuunnn_!"

"What if someone important calls?" he argued.

"That's what caller ID is for, duh!" Sayu giggled.

"Whatever," Raito said as his eyes rolled, "Is mom home?"

"Nope," replied Sayu, "Mom went grocery shopping. Why?"

"Because I might not come home in a while."

Sayu's voice took a worried pitch. "Why?" she asked uncertainly.

Raito shook his head and laughed disarmingly, "I'm studying at a coffee shop a little while away. It's nice here. I'll try to be home in a few hours." Yes, that would work. Raito had prepared himself with more than one death in that amount of time. As a precaution, he'd set the time of death for his victims to times throughout the day to eliminate any leads A and W may have had. He would study and criminals would continue to disappear.

"Okay," said Sayu, "Take care."

"You too. Lock the doors."

"Already did. Bye!"

"Bye."

Click.

Raito put his cell back in his backpack and blew a puff of air at his bangs. And now, more studying.

Suddenly, the book he was reading was bumped onto the floor with a whoosh and a deafening smack. Raito grimaced at the sound and glared up at the culprit. He was about to say something nasty when the perpetrator apologized.

"Oh, I'm sorry! How clumsy of me," a masculine voice rumbled. Raito looked up into the man's face. He was tall, that was sure. Taller than Raito, but only by an inch or so. He had shoulder-length black hair that looked well kept and wild at the same time. His glasses weren't too big or two small and they fit his eyes perfectly. Despite the clipped manner in which he wore his business suit, his aura screamed 'NERD' at the top of its lungs.

Raito didn't mind.

He paid the man's frequent apologies no heed and bent down to collect his textbooks. He was surprised yet again when he found the black-haired, six foot nerd in a business suit right beside him with Raito's Japanese history book in his arms.

"Let me help you with that," he offered in a smooth baritone.

Raito snorted nonchalantly and set his books on the table.

The six foot nerd in a business suit set his Japanese history book among others on the table. "I really am sorry about that. I wasn't watching where I was going," he apologized again, "By the way, my name is Mikami Teru. What's yours?"

----

Wasn't watching where he was going? He _pushed_ those books off of Raito's table on purpose! He practically came all the way from across the room to shove them onto the floor!

Hell if Ryuzaki was going to let him get away with that!

And what was he doing introducing himself?

What was he doing? Trying to- trying to…

Oh fucking hell shit _ass_ no.

He wasn't… he couldn't be! No!

No, no, no, no, no!

The little alarm bells were screaming in L's head. This guy was flirting.

With Raito!

L made a show of clenching his toes together and growling to himself. Was he going to stand by and watch as this intruder socialized shamelessly with his Raito? Damned if he was.

'Kill him,' said the coffeecake.

L slithered over to where the sneaky bastard and Raito were standing. He introduced himself to Raito. Oh, now L was mad. Now that bastard did it.

Raito seemed to consider the intruder's greeting for a moment. He stole a glance at L, who felt his glare clearly communicated, 'Oh, no you don't.' Much to L's alarm and dismay, Raito smirked.

"Raito Yagami," he smiled warmly. L stomped his foot. Both Mikami and Raito looked over in his direction due to the noise. "You can _not_ do that," L deadpanned. The corner of Raito's lip twitched as if to say, 'I just did.'

L considered the goings on of the past half hour with a critical eye. First, Raito argued with him about being nice, then he bought him a cake, and now he was doing… this, for lack of a better phrase. He was testing L's nerves and the psychopomp wasn't enjoying a second of it.

Mixed signals.

L growled.

Mikami pulled up a chair and was soon engaged in a deep conversation with Raito.

"College entrance exams? I remember those. I must sound awfully old to you. The truth is, I'm in college myself. I'm studying to be a lawyer."

"A lawyer?" joked Raito, "You're not old now, but you'll definitely get old fast."

"Ouch," laughed Mikami lightheartedly, "So, do you have any goals when you get out of school?"

_Sure. I'd really like to go into the business of serial killing…_

"Actually I wanted to be a lawyer myself until-"

_Until a few minutes ago._

"-a few months ago."

Damn.

"I want to be a detective now."

"You like punishing the unjust?" Mikami smiled.

Raito blinked. Suddenly, he became guarded. L could tell. He tensed in his chair and his smile lost altitude. He knew what was going through Raito's head. Is he my enemy? What's he trying to get at? "Yeah, I like to see criminals put in jail," Raito chose his words carefully.

Mikami nodded as if the comment meant nothing special to him, "So do I. Lawyer, remember?"

L flew back into jealous mode. What were they doing, sharing interests now? This conversation was going downhill fast. L worried his thumbnail.

"So what university do you plan on going to?" the bastard changed the subject.

"To-Oh, actually. I hear it has a nice campus. Good tennis courts too."

"You play tennis?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty good if you wanna' take me on," Raito smirked in a playful tone which clearly radiated, 'Why yes, I _am_ made of awesome.'

L opted to express his fury by sulking quietly beside the table. Raito paid him no heed.

Mikami chuckled, "As intriguing as it is, I'm afraid I'll have to turn you down. I'm not much for tennis. I'm more of a chess sort of person."

Raito smiled again in that way that made L's spine prickle, "Chess is good too."

L growled, infuriated. Voluntarily or not, Raito was _not_ going to be stolen by the likes of I-have-a-stick-up-my-ass Teru. L wouldn't allow it. It was then that he sincerely cursed with every fiber of his body his inability to hurt a human being.

Unless…

L's mood changed completely. His momentary outburst had been quelled, thanks to the sudden reappearance of his self-control.

L assumed a look of complete seriousness and stood directly beside Mikami. Raito gave him a skeptical look. "If you don't stop this nonsense," the psychopomp announced tersely, "I'll have to do something you'll regret."

Raito quickly answered one of Mikami's questions before turning his honey eyes to L once again, silently asking just what he was planning to do. "Shoes," L said, "I'll only give you one more warning. If you don't stop this charade, you'll find out why I hate shoes."

Raito seemed to be considering the mini-death's threats. He turned frequently between Mikami and L, thinking.

Then, against all logic, he continued holding his pleasant conversation with Mikami. L growled and his scowl deepened. "I'm warning you," he said.

Raito didn't even look at him.

"So, Raito-kun," Mikami continued, "Where do you live?"

Oh, that did it. No more warnings. This was a time of desperation and desperate times called for desperate measures. "Very well," L sighed, "You leave me no choice."

Raito looked rigidly at him as he disappeared beneath the table.

Mikami was wearing very expensive, dressy shoes. If L could untie his shoelaces, there was a cornucopia of interesting things he could do with them. The problem was untying his shoelaces without putting any alerting pressure on his feet.

L set about the meticulous chore of untying the enemy's shoes. Five precious minutes and he had them untied and retied.

Together.

If he got up and walked away, which he would, by God, he would trip and fall on his face. Not only would he be humiliated, but Raito would as well. L knew better than anybody what humiliation did to Raito, but it was a necessary sacrifice.

L stood up, gave Raito a resolved look, nodded to himself, and returned to his side of the room.

In the few painful minutes it took for Mikami to leave, he discussed politics, religion, food, hobbies, and even e-mail addresses with Raito. When the moment finally came, L was biting his lip in anticipation.

"Well," the intruder said, pushing his chair out, "I've taken up enough of your time. Perhaps we could have that game of chess after you've aced your entrance exam."

"Yeah," Raito smiled, "I'll think about it."

Just as he turned to leave, Raito's eyes snapped to his shoes and he made to stand up and warn him not to move, but it was too late. With a yelp, Mikami tripped over his own shoelaces and plummeted toward the floor. L gave a war whoop and watched as his enemy sailed downward, just as he had planned.

However, something he'd not planned for the life of him was one Raito Yagami, rushing out of his seat and diving to save him before he hit the concrete. L's euphoria boiled away and his heart hit the floor like a rock when the impossible happened. Raito, _His_ Raito was on the floor.

Underneath another man.

L couldn't believe his eyes. First, Raito had been aiming to catch Mikami by the shirt and stop his fall. This could not be accomplished, however, when Raito also tripped and upset his balance. It didn't matter what angle the psychopomp looked at the situation. The position in which Raito had landed was scientifically impossible unless it was deliberate. L was damned if it was. In the end, they'd both landed on the floor.

All L could do was bite his thumb and shove his nails into his eyes.

"Uh… wow," said Mikami after an awkward silence.

"Yeah," replied Raito in a voice which suggested an attempt to hold his self-confidence. To L's trained ears, however, he sounded mildly terrified. He quickly composed himself.

"Nice save," mentioned Mikami.

"Thanks," said Raito.

Then, Mikami took much longer than necessary to stare into Raito's eyes and L resisted the urge to regurgitate everything he'd ever eaten. It was positively sickening! And how could Raito just sit there like that? It was obvious to L that he was mortified, so why didn't he bolt?

"You can get off me now," Raito mentioned.

Mikami blinked as if remembering something, then apologized and shuffled off. He offered Raito a hand, but Raito insisted that he could get up himself.

L breathed a sigh of relief.

"I honestly don't know how this happened," the enemy muttered, untying his shoes and fixing his glasses at the same time. L could swear he heard Raito grumbling, "I know how it happened," under his breath, but he said, "It's no big deal," out loud.

All in all, L's master plan had served to upset the bond between Kira and the intruder only a little bit.

Damn.

Why could Mikami make Raito so comfortable with his small talk? How could he do that? Whenever L tried to start a conversation, it ended in raised voices followed by a period of silent treatment. What did Mikami do that L didn't? It… it wasn't looks, was it? No, definitely not. L could be tall when he wanted to stop slouching and Mikami's glasses made him look ridiculous.

So what was it?

Charm?

Similar interests?

Bumping into Raito's textbooks, spilling them all over the floor, then offering to pick them up for him?

Smooth talking?

What was it?

L was damned if he knew.

----

Raito left the coffee shop feeling like someone had just let a circus loose inside his chest. The conversation was nice, the look on Ryuzaki's face was fabulous, and the exit was horrifying. Forget tripping in front of a school, _that _was the most humiliating moment of his life. He'd managed to keep some of his dignity by pulling himself off of the floor and turning down Mikami's offer for a ride, but look what he'd gotten himself into!

He was a wreck!

He couldn't let Ryuzaki know that, though.

"Raito-kun," Ryuzaki scolded, "Act your age!"

"Look who's talking," he bit back with a smirk. Much to his pleasure, Ryuzaki balled his hands into fists. "You know nothing about that man. He could have been dangerous."

"Dangerous?" laughed Raito, "He's about as lethal as a box of kittens. Since when are you so concerned anyway?"

"Are you using him?"

Raito blinked. "What do you mean by that?"

"You know what I mean. Using him to get at someone."

Raito grinned. So he'd gotten to the idiot after all. "Originally, yeah. I wanted to make you mad."

"It worked," grumbled Ryuzaki.

"And after he asked me about punishing the unjust, I figured he might be one of A and W's spies. So I danced around him awhile. I figure that if I get him to like me enough, he'll come to the realization that the Dark Side is much more fun."

"The 'Dark Side?'"

Raito rolled his eyes, "He'll end up being my double-agent, moron."

Ryuzaki snorted disdainfully, "So this is what you do?"

Raito raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"You manipulate the emotions of others until you get what you want and _only_ what you want, is that right?"

"What the hell are you blabbering about, Ryuza-"

"Don't use people," the mini-death interrupted. "It's wrong."

Kira made an indifferent clicking noise with his tongue, hefted his backpack further onto his shoulders, and said nothing.

Moments later, he walked in the door to a house full of dinner-smell. It did nothing for his mood though, as he marched into the dining room to a table covered in cold food and surrounded by people.

"Raito-kun!" Sayu squealed, "You're home!"

Soichiro motioned for him to sit down. Without saying a word, he did so. "Sayu insisted that we wait for you. She cooked tonight and wouldn't let us eat without you."

Raito's eyes found his sister and she smiled proudly at him. He offered a weak smile back. "Thanks."

And they ate.

Sayu's cooking was delicious as usual and Raito appreciated it.

But he had something else on his mind. He hated admitting it, but every day there was something Ryuzaki said that struck a nerve in him; something that hit deeper than it was supposed to. He contemplated his advice of the day.

_Don't use people. It's wrong._

The more Raito looked around the room, the more he realized that no one was important to him. Sure, everyone he saw was related to him by blood and in the case of his sister, constantly in need of mathematical assistance. Notwithstanding, Sayu was Sayu. His mother was Sachiko. Even his dad wasn't 'dad.' He was Soichiro.

How many friends did he have at school? None. He figured that it was perfectly normal to want to be by himself, but every time he befriended someone, it was because he needed something from them. Girlfriends? He had a million. Why? He used them to keep his popularity up and they used him just to say, ''Y know, I dated Raito Yagami once…'

He wasn't even _gay _when he flirted around with Mikami. Or was he? Raito couldn't tell anymore. Maybe he was. After all, he felt absolutely nothing when he went on dates with women.

He felt kind of… empty.

"Son?" Soichiro's voice interrupted his thoughts. Raito glanced quickly over to his father and said, "Hm?" Soichiro squinted. "You seem tired. Did something happen at school?"

Raito shook his head. "No. Just a long day I guess." He turned back to his food, but felt Soichiro's unrelenting gaze on his back two pieces of chicken later. His father knew there was something Raito wasn't telling him. Presently, though, he'd have to deal with it. Raito wasn't in the mood for talking.

He wasn't ever in the mood for talking. Maybe that was why he had no friends.

Well, fuck.

Here he was again, being generally depressed and unable to do much about it. Well, he could always go to Ryuzaki with his problems. On second thought, no. The action in itself was the equivalent of admitting failure.

Raito made no mistakes.

None.

If he had problems, he was going to solve them himself. With that, he complemented Sayu on her cooking and excused himself to his room. He dragged his heavy backpack up the stairs and opened his door, pushing the pack into his room with his foot. Raito didn't bother turning the light on. The lighting from the window was adequate. Instead of flipping his television on and starting up his computer as he'd made a habit of doing lately, he made his way over to his balcony and stepped outside.

Ryuzaki was nowhere in sight. Raito figured he was probably down in the kitchen, drooling over cake or something.

Typical.

A thought suddenly reached him. Perhaps his snide attitude was keeping him from normal teenage social activity. He tended to label people as worthy or unworthy of his time. Raito liked to feel superior. Currently though, he was fighting the urge to crawl into bed and sleep the day off.

The soft padding of feet across a section of carpet was the only sign that Ryuzaki was there. He oozed into the room with the subtlety of a crocodile in a bog. Raito assumed Ryuzaki's stealth to be an attempt to avoid him as best he could. If he was shying away, though, he gave no sign of it. Ryuzaki was gifted, much like Raito, with the ability to remain calm in strenuous situations.

Most of them, anyway.

He hadn't exactly been cool as a cucumber when Raito talked with Mikami. Come to think of it, whenever he gave anyone a considering look, the mini-death would keep an eye out for the object of his attention with steel in his eye and a scowl on his face.

The first thing that came to mind was that Ryuzaki was jealous. He was jealous that Raito paid more attention to the world around him. Maybe that was why Ryuzaki had blown up in his face earlier about his attitude.

And maybe the reason Ryuzaki was jealous of other people was because he…

No.

Raito wasn't going to go there. There was no way on whatever world that the psychopomp appreciated him that deeply. If he remembered correctly, Ryuzaki had mentioned something in the past about 'not wanting to end up like Near,' but Raito had always felt safe in the presumption that he was using the opportunity as an excuse for acting sentimental.

Raito breathed a deep sigh, and closed his eyes for a moment. He leaned all his weight into the elbow on the railing and massaged his temples in his fingers. Currently, he was at a loss of what to think. Maybe he really _did _have to sleep it off.

Not before he'd closed shop for the night, though.

Reluctantly, Raito left the cool air on his balcony and retreated inside. He left the sliding doors open to allow the night air to circulate through his room and carry the stagnant atmosphere away with it. Breathing another taxed sigh, he fell into his chair and turned on the television.

Serial arsonist… terrorist… kidnapper…

Raito cycled through his victims, snapping over and over again, commanding each one to die at said time, said place. When he felt he was safe, Raito glanced at the clock. It was nearly midnight.

And Ryuzaki hadn't said a word. Raito reasoned that it was because the psychopomp was waiting for the swelling of his temper to go back down. He had been cautious about baiting Raito's bad side ever since his trip to the hospital.

As the television glowed various shades of pink in the lapse of a shampoo commercial, Raito spun himself about-face on his chair. Perched on one corner of his bed was one panda-eyed psychopomp worrying the tip of his thumb. He was staring at Raito more intently than was polite and Raito resisted the desire to back down and look away. Ryuzaki was a very blunt and straightforward person, even in his actions. He openly, blatantly stared Raito down with no motive in particular. The brunette wouldn't allow himself to become uncomfortable with his gaze. He merely shot it right back with an equal lack of enthusiasm.

L's shoulders heaved and slumped as he released a deep, listless breath.

Raito closed his eyes and sighed, resting his jaw on the back of his office chair. "What do you want, Ryuzaki?" he asked hopelessly.

"Only what I requested from you, Raito-kun," the psychopomp replied curtly.

Raito rolled his eyes beneath his eyelids, "You want me to be nicer to you?"

"I'd appreciate it, yes," said Ryuzaki.

Raito dared to open one indifferent eye. "You want more cake?" he asked blandly.

Ryuzaki frowned. "No. Food doesn't keep me happy."

"So I've noticed," complained Raito. He blew a puff of air into the room. "So tell me. How am I supposed to act?"

Ryuzaki considered the question for a minute or two. "I think you could appreciate what I do for you a little bit more."

Raito rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time that day. God, Ryuzaki sounded every bit like a teenage girl. Of course, Raito was grudgingly reminded that yes, Ryuzaki did do a lot for him. He served as Raito's own shinigami alarm system, helped him when he needed moral support, and, on the odd occasion, saved him from death.

Huh.

…

Raito's ego grumbled stubbornly that it was no big deal. The logical part of his mind told him that the psychopomp's presence was helpful, and still another section of thought, one that he hadn't quite identified yet, screamed, cheered, and waved poster-board signs at him that said, "MAKE LOVE NOT WAR" in lime green washable marker.

"You _have_ saved my ass once or twice," admitted Raito with a condescending growl.

Ryuzaki nodded, "Yes I have. I go out of my way to ward Death away from your door every day and you hate me anyway. But this 'Mikami' of yours merely has to knock a pile of books on the floor and you're both singing like birds."

Raito gave him the eye. "So you're _jealous_ that I talk to him and not you?"

The mini death shook his head, "I'm merely stating an observation, Raito. If you rank me so much lower than a stranger you met in a café, I don't know why I bother with you."

Raito crossed his arms, cocked an eyebrow and smirked with his mouth half open. "So that's what this is about? You're jealous."

"I never said that."

"But it's rolling off of you in clouds, my friend."

"Raito-kun, stop."

"Shh! Ryuzaki! Do you hear that?"

A short pause.

"That's the sound… of you being jealous!"

"Raito-kun, please. Act your age."

"It's true, isn't it though?" The brunette was in hysterics, "Just admit that I'm right and I promise not to bother you about it."

"Indeed? I think not. If I were to admit to something like that, you'd never let me hear the end of it. I won't argue with you any longer, Raito-kun."

"Just say it, Ryuzaki. It's written all over your face."

Nothing.

"Give up."

Nothing.

"Say it!"

Still nothing.

Ryuzaki sat stubbornly on the corner of the bed and refused to reply. Raito turned around in his office chair and threw his head back in defiant resistance.

Neither one of them said anything to the other for the remainder of the night.

----

At approximately two hours, thirty four minutes, and fifteen point two seconds in the morning, L woke up. He rubbed his eyes and yawned tiredly before stretching one foot off of the edge of Raito's bed. He contemplated pacing about the room in a circle to-

Wait.

L woke up.

In order to wake from sleep, one had to be asleep in the first place. Did that mean… L had been asleep?

Sleeping asleep?

With his eyes closed and his brain shut off and periods of rapid eye movement every twenty minutes? Asleep… Not thinking or watching…

"Raito-kun?" L mentioned suddenly, twisting his upper body around to look at the lifeless lump of human flesh under the… blankets…

"Raito-kun!" L hollered, hopping over to said lump of sheets leaning toward the right side of the mattress. How could he have fallen asleep? L never needed sleep in the past! What if something happened to Raito while he was unconscious?

Wait. Was this how Mello died? Did Near fall asleep at the last minute? Was he unaware when Mello suddenly got the urge to gobble up one fatal chocolate-blueberry muffin?

L climbed over a hill of quilts to where he thought Raito's head would be.

_Might have been._

He peeked over a stubborn section of quilt to see the peacefully sleeping, _breathing_, moonlit face of Raito Yagami. His long lashes dusted his cheeks and his lips were parted in that most adorable of ways. A lock of brownish-red hair curled around one ear and the rest was chaotically organized about the top of his head. One arm was drawn into his chest and the other was draped lazily over a pillow.

Raito was the embodiment of cute.

Cute in the way that the Monty Python bunny was cute.

Before it killed everyone…

While L was on the subject, he thought of how the rabbit was killed by the Holy Hand-grenade of Antioch. If reality was to be paralleled to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the holiness of said hand-grenade would suggest death by divine influence. Holiness came from God, un-holiness came from Satan. In this case, though, holiness could be defined as godliness. God was more so than Satan, but both were godly. Of the two, Satan was more likely to make an attempt on Raito's life.

When Raito proposed the existence of an Anti-Kira, his suspicions were well-founded. If she so desired, Satan could create another him, twisted to her liking.

Or maybe she already had.

She'd need a human much like Raito, but more spiteful of the world. She'd need a human who was loyal, but bold; polite and proud. Said human would also need a strong sense of justice.

She could not, however, turn this person into a Kira by God's means. Satan had no say in the smiting of mankind.

Her shinigami did, though.

In order for an Anti-Kira to rise, a shinigami would have to lend its notebook to a mortal. It would have to be _ordered_ to lend its notebook to a mortal.

L's train of thought was derailed with a rather loud rumbling of the stomach. He nodded absently to himself. He could debate with himself later, but right then…

L needed a strawberry.

He snuck down to the kitchen, flowing osmotically through the floor, and opened the refrigerator up. Inside was a plastic container of strawberries. L giggled to himself and swept the clear plastic object into his hands. He popped the lid open and immediately searched out the darkest and juiciest strawberries he could find. He picked out every fat, purple berry and stuffed them into his mouth.

Raito would hate him for gobbling up this much food in one night, but L couldn't stand hunger. Also, it appeared that he was experiencing mild strawberry withdrawal. Raito couldn't ask him to ignore it.

He ate the last sweet strawberry, signaling his satisfaction with a smack of the lips, and then closed the container with a snap of the lid. L lamented parting with it, but the container would look suspiciously empty if he pursued his interests any further.

And he ran the risk of turning human faster than he already was. The fact that he'd fallen asleep was evidence that the human world was catching up to him.

L closed the fridge softly and oozed back into the woodwork of the building. He morphed out in Raito's room, which was exactly how he had left it. Curling his toes around the footboard of the bed again, L relaxed and thought about food.

It seemed that L's mind couldn't go uninterrupted, as Raito suddenly sat ramrod straight in bed and scared him out of his wits. Fearing another medical emergency, L stammered, "Raito-kun! What's the matter?"

"You're being really loud," Raito remarked. L noted the randomness of his words and calmed down a little. "Raito-kun," he asked slowly, "who am I?"

Raito leered at him with a tipsy 'duh' look in his eyes.

"You're Dave," he said.

L nodded his head thoughtfully. He wondered what had caused the sudden outbreak of wakeful dreams. He'd been having more than usual lately. "What can I do to be quieter?" he asked politely, encouraging the conversation.

"You can turn your subwoofer off," slurred Kira, annoyed.

"Ah," reflected L, "And where are we, exactly?"

"The subway."

L sighed, "Raito-kun, if we are in a subway, I would be unable to carry a functioning subwoofer with me." The amber-eyed mortal only blinked uncomprehendingly at him. L elaborated, "It's impractical and impossible."

"Turn it off," Raito insisted.

"I don't have it on," stated L, slightly annoyed.

"You do," persisted Raito.

L concluded that it would be in his best interest to discontinue any further argumentation on his part. He aimed a level, unimpressed glare in Raito's direction and admitted rather flatly, "You caught me."

Raito smiled proudly. "I knew you had it on," he remarked to himself, "I know everything."

"Really?" L smirked around his thumb.

"I'm always right, aren't I, Dave."

L released a laughing sigh. "No," he replied, "You aren't."

This confused Raito, who blinked several times before squinting slowly and letting his eyes slip to the side in deep contemplation. "I can be… wrong?"

"Yes," affirmed L.

Raito offered a sly grin. "See? I'm right…"

"You confuse the shit out of me," said L flatly.

"Yeah? Well you don't make sense either," retorted Raito. Before L had a chance to reply on the subject, the auburn-haired teen was elaborating the hell out of it. "You say 'be nice,' and then you go and tell me I'm wrong all the time. You call that 'being nice?'"

"It's called 'the truth,' Raito-kun," said L, "The truth isn't always nice."

"The truth?" clarified Raito, "So are _you_ always right?"

L huffed a sigh of frustration and slumped in his seat. Raito was very persistent when he wanted to be. "No," admitted L, "Not all the time."

"Well, if _you're_ not right and _I'm _not right, who should I listen to?"

Just wanting to get the argument over with, L said, "God."

"You said he was senile."

"Listen to God."

"You're not right, so why should I listen to you?"

L dropped his hands to his sides, breathed, breathed again, and then turned his back and told Raito to have a good night.

"Are you jealous?" asked the semi-conscious boy who L had politely asked to go to sleep. L clenched his fists to relieve the pressure building in his head. He was getting tired of the constant bickering. And he wasn't jealous.

…

Fine.

Maybe a little.

_Maybe a lot._

"Yes, Raito-kun," L growled, "I am jealous."

"Why?"

L rolled his eyes. There was no downside to speaking with Raito in his semi-sleep. He didn't remember anything when he woke up. L decided to splurge. "Here I am, helping you dodge death, attempting to befriend you, and listening to you talk in your sleep. You disregard me completely. In walks a complete stranger and you talk to him like you've known him your whole life."

"That makes you mad?" asked the cloudy-eyed Raito.

"Yes."

"Is it because you like me?"

L blinked. This was… unexpected. "I do feel a certain obligation to protect you," he said, dancing around the question, "And I admit, I like your company more than cake."

"Do you think I'm sweeter than cake?" Raito asked with a drunk, cheeky grin on his face.

L rolled his eyes again. Just to get Raito to go back to sleep, he admitted, "Yes, Raito-kun. I think you're sweeter than cake."

"Say 'I think Raito's sexy.'"

L scoffed. What was this? "You're acting like a girl."

"You know you wanna' say it."

"I'm not sure I do."

"If you think I'm sweeter than cake, say it."

"No."

"Chicken."

"I'm not a chicken."

"Then prove it!"

"I think Raito's sexy," muttered L.

Raito leaned in closer, nearly falling over with the effort. He whispered loudly in L's ear, "Say it louder! I don't think anybody else can hear you!"

L hesitated for a moment before throwing caution to the wind in favor of putting Raito to sleep. "I THINK RAITO'S SEXY!" he yelled.

Raito broke into a fit of hysterical laughter, which L greatly disapproved of. Feeling humiliated and irritated, he crossed his arms across his chest and huffed. Then, it occurred to L that Raito's laughter was becoming more and more frighteningly sober.

"Ryuzaki," Raito snickered, "I'm always right."

"Oh? Go to slee-"

_Ryuzaki?_

No 'Dave?'

L turned back in Raito's general direction, eye twitching madly and teeth grinding together. That little fink!

He was awake the whole time!

----

Me: Monty Python. Not mine. D:

Chibi Misa: Oh my.

Chibi Raito: -rolls-

Chibi L: -screams-

Me: Love it? Hate it? Want me to feed L cake and make him feel better?

Chibi L: YES. YOU DO.

Chibi Raito: -still rolling-

Chibi L: …That wasn't nice, Raito-kun…

Chibi Raito: I AM NOT NICE!

Chibi L: So I've noticed.

Chibi Misa: Hmkay. It's getting icy in here. Maybe we should stop the author's note before L kills Raito.

Me: He'd never do that. Raito's too cute.

Chibi Raito: I am NOT cute!

Chibi L: He is NOT cute!

Chibi Misa: Yep. Well, hope you all enjoyed the sarcasm, the pointless humor, the soap-opera-ish-ness, and the progression. Cookies for reviewers! Review, review, review!


	8. Psychotically Yours

**DS**

**Disclaimer: **Would you believe it? I don't own Death Note!

Chibi Misa: -le gasp- You don't?

Me: Uh, no. Not really.

Chibi Raito: She's only been saying that for the past eight chapters.

Me: Eight chapters! Can you believe it? Huzzah!

Chibi L: That's not entirely impressive, you know.

Me: Shut up!

Chibi L: -munches cookies-

Chibi Raito: Gay…

Chibi L: So what if I am? I'm more man than you'll ever be.

Me: I think we know who the seme is…

Chibi Raito: Injustice! I am _so_ prettier than he is! I'll fight for it if I have to.

Me: Exactly.

Chibi Raito: You can't do that to me.

Me: I'm the author. I can do whatever I want.

Chibi Misa: Ho-kay! Welcome to another DS chapter, serving up the DOOM just the way you like it!

Chibi L: Doom? Is that like mousse? It sounds good.

Chibi Misa: Read, review, and relax!

**D S 8**

As much as Raito didn't want to believe it, the evidence was irrefutable.

The morning after his play-sleeping escapade, he gladly pointed a finger at Ryuzaki and laughed. The psychopomp, as if accepting his fault, stood by with his snooty nose in the air and weathered the storm. When Raito was tired of rubbing it in his face, the gravity of Ryuzaki's confession began to set in. As soon as the thought occurred to him, he immediately turned to the mini-death and said that it was all a joke… right?

He just wanted Raito to go back to sleep… right?

Much to his unease, Ryuzaki sleepily stared him straight in the face and sighed.

Raito felt himself becoming a little uncomfortable. He asked Ryuzaki whether or not he could see through walls.

…or through clothes.

The mini-death shook his head.

Raito heaved a grateful sigh.

He started to sleep with more than a pair of boxers on. He even resorted to wearing jeans and a T-shirt to bed on some occasions. Raito forbid Ryuzaki to be anywhere in the room with him when he was getting dressed. He forced Ryuzaki out of the bathroom altogether.

Ryuzaki told him he was being unreasonable, but Raito didn't care. He was just being cautious.

To top things off, the entrance exams were starting and Ryuzaki had been drifting behind him more often than usual. Or… maybe Raito was just paying more attention than usual. Either way, Raito felt a pang of discomfort whenever he didn't have a clear view of the psychopomp.

"Ryuzaki!" Raito hissed under his breath, "Get back over here!"

Ryuzaki had wandered out of sight again. Raito wanted to see what he was doing at all times. The psychopomp stalked back over to the empty desk in front of him and perched unhappily on the top of the chair. "Honestly, Raito-kun," he deadpanned, "what is all this nonsense about?"

"Stay where I can see you," commanded Raito. Ryuzaki crouched on the chair, crossed his arms, frowned, and asked, "Why?"

"I don't want you trying anything."

Ryuzaki melted despairingly into the chair. "Raito-kun," he implored once he reappeared, "be reasonable!"

"I am," he grumbled.

Ryuzaki threw his arms skyward and said, "Tell me, Raito-kun, what about this is reasonable?"

Raito contemplated saying something smart, but a sudden, dreadful penumbra had fallen over his desk. "Number ninety-two," a familiar voice rumbled, "Who are you talking to?"

Raito looked up into dark eyes, absent of glasses, and remembered. He cast one glance at the floundering Ryuzaki, one at the man yelling orders at the front of the room, and one back at the man who addressed him. 'Mikami?' he mouthed disbelievingly.

He heard rather than saw Ryuzaki's eyes rolling in his skull and his body traveling in a likewise motion off of the chair.

Teru nodded. "We've got quite a few people today," he remarked in a whisper. Raito ventured an eyeful of the room. There were very few empty desks. Five in the entire room if Ryuzaki was to be counted as an occupant. Actually, Ryuzaki was more hanging off of his chair than sitting in it.

"Please make this quick," the mini-death grouched, "You don't want to fail, do you?"

Raito sighed. Ryuzaki really was jealous, wasn't he?

"Why are you here?" Raito whispered hurriedly.

"Examiner," said Teru quietly. He bent down to Raito's level and whispered, "Since you told me you'd be here, I couldn't resist."

Ryuzaki popped back up in his chair and shot laser-eye-beams straight into the side of the older man's head. Raito glanced warily at Ryuzaki. He'd been given two evils to choose from. One, he could continue his conversation with Mikami and be eaten alive by both Ryuzaki and the man at the front of the room. Two, he could give Mikami the cold shoulder, lose all the helpful friendship he'd gained thus far, and give Ryuzaki the idea that he actually cared.

Cornered…

Luckily, he never had to make either choice. Teru smiled disarmingly and announced, "I'd better move along. We're getting a few unwanted looks." He seemed on the verge of moving away when his eyes suddenly brightened. "By the way," he whispered, "Twenty four is a trick question."

Raito grinned secretively. 'Thanks,' he mouthed before turning his attention back to the front of the room. When his Mikami-dar stopped beeping, Raito let out a heavy, troubled sigh. He hated admitting it, but Teru's sudden visit made his stomach do flips. They weren't particularly desirable flips either.

He felt like he was doing something stupid and wrong.

Raito _never_ did anything stupid, let alone wrong.

"He's too old for you," a bland voice deadpanned from the floor in the space in front of him. Raito set his head on his desk and snarled, "And how old are _you_, exactly?"

The mini-death popped up excitedly and said, "Are you suggesting that-"

Raito caught his mistake and hissed "No!" as loud as he could without drawing unneeded attention. If Ryuzaki thought he was alluding to the possibility of Raito finding him attractive, he was dead wrong.

Ryuzaki blinked flatly several times before chewing on his thumb and re-seating himself underneath the chair.

Glad for the temporary peace, Raito pushed himself off of the desk and leaned back in his seat. Judging from the clock on the wall and the men coming down each isle, the test was about to start.

----

Raito was a bastard.

There was no doubt about it.

All of the sudden, he was acting even more cold and lame than usual. The minute L figured out he wasn't asleep, he knew he was in for a long, aggravating ride. Raito was not the type of man to accept new things right off the bat. L calmed himself down the day after the incident, saying that it would only take Raito a while before he shrugged the shock off.

Bad mistake.

Raito was as flighty and irritated as a canary in a cage. He was easily spooked and foolishly suspicious. He was every bit as accusing as he'd ever been and more.

Throughout the test, Ryuzaki sat on the floor and moped. He glanced up from time to time, wondering how Raito was doing. As soon as the brunette caught a glimpse of movement, though, his eyes shot forward and glared L down with enough force to make a hyena cry.

L had no desire to make Raito more skittish about him, but he had the sudden urge to venture into the brunette's blind spot and peer out the windows. He glanced solemnly up at the ceiling and pondered his options before getting up and walking off. Raito's pencil stopped scratching and L became painfully aware of amber eyes stalking him away. Mistrustful as ever, Raito was.

L didn't let the mortal's disdain strike him as he padded carefully over to the window. He peered out of the glass, scouting for anything abnormal.

And frankly, the abnormal was becoming more and more the opposite.

There in a tree, a familiar sight, perched Ryuk. The shinigami waved lazily at L as if he'd been expected. The mini-death quirked an eyebrow. He looked back at the spot where Raito (easy to spot by his hair-color) was scratching tensely away at his sheet of paper and decided that he was in no immediate danger.

Mind made up, L morphed through the window and made his way over to the shinigami. Ryuk slapped one knee and laughed his peculiar, hollow laugh, "I knew you couldn't resist a chance to talk with me!"

L crossed his arms impersonally and replied, "You've become much more interesting to talk to now that Raito avoids me like the plague."

"Flattered," belched the shinigami.

L continued to pose in indifferent defiance, lest the shinigami get the idea that L was offering him his hand in friendship. Truth be told, L hated the shinigami's guts. He had no practical reason to, seeing how Ryuk hadn't done anything to harm Raito thus far. However, his hinting toward the not-so-accidental death of Mello and his very possession of a Death Note made L's stomach churn.

"So what's with you two anyway?" the shinigami pried, "You're not as talkative as you used to be."

"An unfortunate sleep-talking incident," L replied tersely.

"Oh," said Ryuk stupidly, "That's too bad."

Out of his sincere dislike of small-talk and his unjustified hatred for shinigami, L suddenly came up with a strange question. He'd heard somewhere that shinigami could only stay in the human world as long as they were not in possession of a Death Note. Ryuk had one. He stated when they first met that he only came down for a visit, but it was now clear to L that something entirely different was going on.

"A shinigami cannot remain in the human world so long as he retains control of a Death Note, correct?" L snapped.

Ryuk seemed to take no note of his temper and said, "Yep. Sounds about right."

"Then what's that?" L asked slyly, indicating the notebook in Ryuk's pocket.

The shinigami twisted around and eyed it peculiarly. After half a minute's scrutiny, he sat up straight again and said, "It's a Death Note."

Brilliant.

"Don't tell me you've been coming down here for constant visits," scoffed L. "Don't you shinigami have a rule against that?"

Ryuk's breathy laughter echoed in the tree branches. "Y' see," he began, "I couldn't stay here if that Death Note was mine…"

L had a sudden flashback involving the strange, moth-like shinigami that had been following Ryuk around recently. When it said that it couldn't find its notebook, the black shinigami had laughed in much the same way.

L nodded to himself. "It's Sidoh's, isn't it?"

Ryuk twisted his body around and said, "You're good."

"I am," stated L coolly. "Now why do you have his notebook?"

The shinigami considered the question with a bony finger to his chin. "Well, if we shinigami don't write enough names down in our notebooks, we die."

L's eye twitched. What a way to give away information. He got the feeling that this wasn't the only reason, though. If he could get more shinigami into the human realm, he could rally them to his cause. Perhaps Ryuk was stealing notebooks as a means of backup.

Check that.

Ryuk wasn't that smart. L was overestimating him.

L puzzled over his findings for a bit. If the notebook in his possession was Sidoh's… "Who has your notebook?" he inquired.

The shinigami tilted his head as if not expecting the question. A strange, unwelcome look came over his jester-like face and he crawled over to L's side of the tree branch. "I don't have to tell you," he breathed.

L frowned. Ryuk was being secretive. Either there was another shinigami beside Sidoh and himself or…

No.

There was absolutely _no_ way. Well, technically, yes, there was a way, but L shoved it out of his consciousness and repeated that there was absolutely _no _way something like this could come about. Try as he might, though, the thought kept popping up. Either the shinigami lost his notebook to another one or…

…he'd given it to a human.

In which case, somewhere in Tokyo, there was an Anti-Kira.

L stared into the smiling fish-eyes of Ryuk. His own eyes widened and his hair stood on end. The shinigami laughed darkly at his surprise.

"You bastard," remarked L.

"Wasn't really my choice," reminisced Ryuk with a finger on his chin, "Well, maybe it was. I dunno'. I guess when I heard Rem was gonna' do it…"

"Wait," barked L, "There are _two _of you?"

"Uh, yeah," admitted Ryuk dumbly, "besides Sidoh, anyway."

L's mind was over-processing the information. There was an Anti-Kira. No, if Ryuk's information was to be interpreted as such, there were or would be _two_ Anti-Kiras. If he gave Sidoh's notebook to another person, there would be _three_ Anti-Kiras.

Ho-lee-shit.

Raito didn't stand a chance.

"Oh God," said L, enthusiasm so spent on his thoughts that his voice came off as bland. Ryuk, still laughing that annoying laugh, chuckled, "You don't need to worry about me an' my human. We're just keeping an eye out in case things get crazy."

L's fists twitched along with his voice, "Are you saying that if Raito kills too many people, you'll kill him?"

"Don't look at me, man," Ryuk pacified with his hands in the air, "I'm not gonna' be killing anyone. I don't even think my human knows who your 'Kira' is yet." He added with a sly squint, "Rem isn't too fond of Kiras, though. I might watch out for her."

L raised an eyebrow, slightly calmed by Ryuk's statement of innocence. Ryuk had been in the human world for quite a while. He hadn't made a move to hurt Raito yet. So far, he'd just sat on the sidelines and offered commentary where it wasn't needed.

Mostly harmless.

L didn't feel like trusting Ryuk, but it was all he could do at this point.

"So, in case this 'Rem' of yours comes around, what does she look like?" he asked with a thumb in his mouth.

"Mmm…" mulled Ryuk, "White, kinda' spongy-looking. I think she looks like a fish. No, wait… Octopus hair and angler-fish eyes. She's got a lipstick thing goin' on, too."

L blinked slowly and firmly to accentuate the extent to which he cared.

"She looks kinda' like me, but a… girl. And white."

"Same basic body type," L clarified.

"Yeah," huffed Ryuk, "Something like that."

"Hmm…" hummed L. He'd have to inform Raito of this… And step up his security. No sleeping on the job. He felt a heavy weight in the pit of his stomach.

Three Anti-Kiras.

Two now, one potential.

The future was looking grim, but L wasn't going to give up. Without any further conversation between Ryuk and himself, L vaulted off of the tree branch and through the window.

He slunk back to the space between the front of Raito's desk and the back of the next one. Once he'd wandered into Raito's peripheral vision, the brunette's golden eyes were locked onto him. L tried his best to shrug his gaze off.

"Where were you?" Raito hissed once L had found a suitable spot under the chair. "Outside," the mini-death offered blandly. Before Raito had a chance to object, L poked his head onto the desk and said, "I have something to tell you. Don't interrupt, because I'm not repeating myself."

Liar.

L was _definitely_ going to repeat himself.

Raito gave him a condescending look that said, '_Do_ go on.'

L sighed deeply. This was going to do nothing for Raito's mood…

----

"Raito-kun," the mini-death began, then his breath hitched and he sighed. Raito's eye twitched. This wasn't a confession of undying love, was it?

"You were… right."

Right? Of course he was right!

…About what?

Ryuzaki sighed again, shuffling about on the floor. He rose onto the chair in front of Raito and curled his legs into his chest. A strange, reluctant, half frightened, half annoyed look came over his face.

Ryuzaki took a deep breath, then exhaled, "There's an Anti-Kira."

Anti-Kira? The idea slowly began to imprint itself in Kira's head. There was… an… Oh no. Raito felt like shooting out of his chair, abandoning his half-done test, and screaming. An Anti-Kira? Where? When? How? No. This wasn't happening. Ryuzaki was just pulling his leg.

Wasn't he?

Raito buried his head in his fists and pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes.

Yes.

Ryuzaki was kidding. There wasn't an Anti-Kira. Things didn't _happen_ that way. It wasn't the way things _went_. There was nothing to worry about.

Something that bad couldn't possibly happen.

Ryuzaki gave him a look so long and flat that it gave Raito the impression the mini-death knew exactly what he was thinking. "You're in denial," he remarked witlessly. Raito shrugged slightly, signaling that he didn't know exactly how or what to think and that the brunt of his ordeal had yet to hit.

Puffing another dreary gust of air, L babbled to fill the silence, "I believe the rumor to be true, but don't let this interfere with your test, Raito-kun. I heard it from a shinigami, so the information might not be credible."

Raito's fists began to unfold and his rigid posture softened into a slump. Of course the information wasn't credible. When he suggested the existence of an Anti-Kira, he was just joking around.

_Something that bad couldn't possibly happen_, Raito's mind repeated for the second time.

It couldn't happen.

No way.

He went through the rest of his test on autopilot. Most of the questions were easy enough. If what Ryuzaki said was true… which it _wasn't_… then Raito was in grave danger. Someone out there had the power to kill him any time, any place. Trying to cool his mind down, he reasoned that an Anti-Kira was just like a shinigami.

…But with more brains.

The increase in intellect was intimidating. An Anti-Kira was a shinigami with the strength of thought to see mistakes in the past, process the present, and make plans for the future. An Anti-Kira was able to connect events, actions, and consequences. An Anti-Kira could interpret the thoughts of another human being.

He could connect every minute mistake that Kira had ever made and trace the dots back to Raito.

Raito would be found out.

And he'd be killed.

It wasn't until that sudden, grim thought that he'd realized he'd stopped writing. Startled, he glanced up at the clock on the wall to see how much time he'd wasted. He closed his eyes tiredly, rested half of his face in his hands, and breathed a shaky sigh through his nose.

Still half an hour…

And he had four spaces left to fill.

More cautious about spacing out than before, Raito twirled his pencil in one hand and continued marking up his paper.

Half an hour later, the student mob suddenly started an uproar. Raito blinked blearily through misty eyes and realized that, once he'd finished his test, he'd taken a nap.

The stress must've been getting to him…

Anti-Kiras, shinigami, heart attacks, gay mini-deaths…

Speaking of whom, where was Ryuzaki? Raito warily peered over the front of his desk. Ryuzaki wasn't there.

Unnerved, he cast the room a searching glance. Ryuzaki not being in his usual spot was trouble in two ways. Firstly, he could have been lying about not being able to see through Raito's clothes. God knew what he was doing.

Secondly, the shinigami and Anti-Kiras could rack his body with ailments while his faithful mini-death wasn't there.

Shit.

Raito pushed on the back of his chair with one palm and raised himself up above the rambling crowd. He surveyed the room again, this time from a higher vantage point, and saw Ryuzaki nowhere. He shrank back down into his seat and cast watchful glares at anyone who moved.

Not Ryuzaki.

Not Ryuzaki.

_Definitely _not Ryuzaki…

Against his personal code of conduct, Raito began to fidget. He took the dull number two pencil off of his desk and pressed it between the thumbs and forefingers of each hand. His toes did a little dance inside of his shoes and his amber eyes rocketed this way and that.

Where was he?

What a time to disappear!

'_Oh, by the way, Raito-kun, there's a monster out for your blood. G'bye now._'

For the love of God! Where the fuck was he? Raito had to hand it to Ryuzaki, he definitely knew the _wrong _time to disappear!

"Raito-kun."

Raito snapped his head to the left. Ryuzaki? Was it Ryuzaki? Not entirely disappointed, his searching eyes met those of a sympathetically smiling Teru Mikami. Raito's shoulders shrugged earthward and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Teru laughed, "You look like you're next in line for the electric chair."

Not quite, but close enough.

Responding to Raito's lack of kickback, Tall, Dark and Geeky frowned with concern. "Something wrong?" he asked. Raito shook his head. "Don't think I did as well on that test as I should have," he lied.

Teru grinned helpfully and offered, "I doubt you have anything to worry about." Raito looked up at him and snorted, "Oh really? How so?"

"One look at you and they'll be dying to let you in."

Sweet talker.

"I'm flattered," Raito remarked with dry sarcasm.

"Is he at it again?"

Raito's eyes flew to the right to a vision more welcome than usual. There he was, faithful old Ryuzaki, dangling from the ceiling, looking more peeved than a stampede of rhinoceros. Raito wondered just how long he'd been hanging around, pun intended.

Relieved somewhat, Raito quickly returned his gaze to Teru, who had been talking to him for quite some time. He nodded and pretended he'd been listening.

After another exchange of pointless small-talk, Teru collected Raito's test and went on his way. Once the older man was out of earshot, Raito's head snapped back over to Ryuzaki.

"Where the hell were you?" he shrilled into his sleeve.

Ryuzaki tilted his head and blinked peculiarly at him. "They were serving brownies downstairs and I thought I might grab one." When Raito's intense glare only deepened, Ryuzaki sagged toward the floor and growled, "What a bore you are. It was a joke, Raito-kun. I was here the entire time."

The brunette was dumfounded and vexed by Ryuzaki's answer. His suspicions of the psychopomp were kindled yet again. "If you were there the whole time, how come you didn't let me know?"

Ryuzaki blinked that uncomprehending blink of his and tilted his head in the other direction. "Tell me if I'm wrong, but I assumed by your attitude that you didn't wish to speak to me, Raito-kun."

"God, Ryuzaki," Raito hissed, "Did you not _see_ me looking for you?"

Ryuzaki crossed his arms, still crouching upside-down on the ceiling. "You were looking for _me_?"

Honestly! Ryuzaki made absolutely no sense sometimes. Raito shook his fists and growled, "Who else would I be looking for?"

"Him," the mini-death gestured apathetically in the direction of Tall, Dark, and Geeky. Raito rolled his eyes. "You make no sense," he reprimanded.

Ryuzaki only gave him a peculiar look that said '_who_ makes no sense?'

Not a moment too soon, the crowd was dismissed. Relieved participants in To Oh's entry exams cascaded out the doors and down the hall in a restless river. Raito stood and stretched his back as he waited for the storm to pass.

Ryuzaki dropped from the ceiling, performing a cat-like barrel-roll in midair such that he landed on all fours in the middle of the table with no noise whatsoever. Raito quirked an eyebrow at him as he brushed his old, faded, loose jeans off and flounced effortlessly onto the floor.

Not paying any particular attention to Raito, Ryuzaki plodded straight past with his glazed charcoal eyes fixed on some nameless, distant place. Ryuzaki had always been kind of… distant. Not all there.

Maybe he was senile.

Raito had no idea.

As he was headed out the door, his shoulder was caught. Fearing an unprovoked shinigami attack, Raito spun around with a hand in the air.

"Yagami-kun," coughed a porky examiner, "Would you… come this way please?"

Suspicious though he was, Raito consented and allowed the man to lead him through another, less crowded hallway. Ryuzaki padded along two paces behind. The brunette cast him a questioning look, but the mini-death only shrugged his shoulders and kept walking.

"Yagami-kun," the man addressed once he'd deemed it safe to stop, "your father is waiting for you outside. He said he had something to talk to you about."

"Oookaaayyy…" Raito drew out in rhetorical confusion. What would his father have to talk to him about? Maybe Raito slipped up and the police force noticed something…

Bad.

Very bad.

Whatever his dad had to tell him, Raito had a gut feeling that it was definitely, truly, and completely _bad_.

Raito was shown out the door and sure enough, there was his father, face wrinkled in anxiety. He stopped pacing once he realized that the door had been opened. Raito thought that seeing his son's face would brighten Soichiro's eyes and put a bounce in his step.

If anything, Raito's disarming smile served to make him more agitated.

Ryuzaki hummed mistrustfully behind him.

"Son," Soichiro started, his hand halfway to a pat on the shoulder. Suddenly, the hand dropped.

Hmmkay. He was definitely bothered about something. "Uh, Dad?" called Raito hopefully. Soichiro sighed tiredly and his hand fell to his side.

Raito's glittering smile lost its luster. He was starting to worry now. What if… What if they found out who Kira was? Was that what had dad bummed out? Or was the Anti-Kira making moves by killing Kira's family first?

Oh, fuck.

"Shit, Dad," Raito swallowed, "Was it Mom or Sayu?"

Soichiro looked startled. Realization hit and his eyes focused again in no time, though. "You think someone died?" he asked, not sounding like he expected an answer, "Thank heavens, no."

"Well then…" Raito prodded, "What is it?"

Soichiro sat there for a long time, just staring in contemplation. Raito cast a sidelong glance at Ryuzaki, who was every bit as confused as he was. "Your father seems on edge about something," he remarked obviously.

Raito growled in exasperation, "Dad, just tell me what's wrong!"

"Just," Soichiro paused and exhaled through his nose, "Just get in the car, Raito."

"Not 'till I know what I'm getting in the car for, Dad."

His father stopped fidgeting and cast him a leery, squinting glare, "You should already know that."

Oh shit.

Ooooh shit, oh shit, oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit ohshitohshitohshit.

They found him. The fucking police force found him. They knew he was Kira. His dad was going to take him to some weird interrogation center. He was going to die.

He was going to _die._

And he hadn't gotten a good chance to fool around with A and W yet, either!

Much to Raito's shock and, strangely, delight, Soichiro said, "Have you been talking to someone?"

Not entirely sure what he meant, Raito asked about his choice of phrasing. "Listen, son," Soichiro began in a voice wet with fatigue, "The police force among other interested parties-" Aiber and Wedy- "have instructed your teachers and these examiners to pay extra close attention to you."

Oh boy.

"They've noticed that, at times, you appear to talk to yourself." Raito tried to interrupt him, but Soichiro wouldn't have it. "They've noticed," he temporarily raised his voice for emphasis, "that you tend to turn around in your seat and follow nonexistent figures very keenly with your eyes."

"Dad," Raito sighed despairingly, but was cut off again.

"Why didn't you tell me you were still hallucinating?" Soichiro cried, "It's… it's because you didn't notice it, isn't it? Your mind's still so muddled from that fever that you can't tell whether the hallucinations are real or not!"

"Dad, I-"

"Is it still that spider-person that's bothering you? I'm sure we could pay for some therapy or medication or… or _something_ to get rid of it!"

Raito blinked. His dad really felt strongly about this. The brunette quickly processed his options for dealing with his dad. He could deny that Ryuzaki existed, but it would make him seem hesitant to reveal information. The police could assume multiple things, some of which were far-fetched. The least far-fetched was that Raito disliked being referred to as crazy and it could make him a strong suspect in the Kira case. Ryuzaki could be a little voice in his head, telling him to kill people or something.

If he admitted that there was an imaginary person following him, the very knowledge of him being imaginary could put Raito in danger. He knew this thing wasn't real, and yet he talked to it anyway. He'd be a real nutcase then.

The best option would be to _deny_ that Ryuzaki was fake, but to _admit_ that he was there in the first place. It would make him sound crazy, but he had a reason. He could blame any psychotic thought he had on his fever.

Mind made up, Raito played along. "You mean," he stammered, "You can't see him?" He swept both arms dramatically toward the place where Ryuzaki was drawing circles in the pavement with his feet. Soichiro looked long and hard at the spot. Raito assumed this was because he didn't want to seem like he didn't care. "No," he admitted after a lengthy search, "I don't see anyone, Raito."

Raito's shoulders slumped in a fantastic imitation of disappointment. He cast an exaggerated, agitated double O at his fanciful friend. Ryuzaki blinked at him in puzzlement and wonder, then started when he got the hint. He awkwardly squished his fists together and held them close to his chest. "Yagami-san!" he lamented theatrically, "You wound me!"

Raito twirled back to his father. "Didn't you hear that?" he asked, astonished and ticked off.

"No," Soichiro sighed and shook his head.

"You… didn't?" asked a faux-crestfallen Raito.

His father cautiously walked over to him and offered him a pat on the shoulder. Raito shied away from it for good effect. This put Soichiro even more on edge and he bargained with his son. "Raito," he pleaded, "Just come into the car with me and we'll get this straightened out. We'll talk and I'll try to hear what your friend has to say."

Raito was well aware that he was acting every bit of six years old and it would be very unusual of him to continue as such. Aiming to maintain the fact that he was an adult, he shook his head and said, "We don't need to talk about anything." For emphasis, he added, "You're talking to me like I'm six, dad."

"Sorry," muttered his father, "I'm just worried."

Raito sighed, more bored than disappointed, and grumbled as he got in the car. Soichiro and the imaginary Ryuzaki followed after him. He left the door open longer than usual to give the illusion that he was letting someone else in. He'd be damned if he was going to let Ryuzaki crawl over his lap, though.

So he closed the door in his face.

Grumbling and groaning, Ryuzaki melted into the pavement and shot up into the seat next to him. "You know, Raito-kun, I was a fool for hoping you'd actually hold the door open for me this time," he groused. Raito nodded in agreement.

"So," his father started, clearly wanting to make his son feel comfortable, "Does this spider-person have a name?" Raito debated answering as the car rolled into the center of the street. He leered at Ryuzaki. To gratify him or not to gratify him? That was the question.

Well, Raito hadn't exactly been _nice_ to him the entire day.

"Actually," he sighed, "He's more of a person than a spider."

Ryuzaki's eyes lit up. It made Raito feel a smidgeon better than he should have.

"Ah," his father hummed thoughtfully. He then turned back to his original question. "I don't want to refer to him as 'that person,' so does he have a name or not?"

"Ryuzaki," mumbled Raito.

His dad hummed again. "That's a nice name," he replied casually as if none of this was a shock to him. "Where's he from?"

Raito cast an uncertain look at Ryuzaki. There were two reasons why he called Ryuzaki 'Dave' when he was half asleep. He'd woken up near the end of one of his sleep-conversations in the past and realized this. Firstly, Dave was the name of the guy who shut down the HAL 9000 in Two Thousand and One, a Space Odyssey. It was one of the strangest foreign films he'd ever seen.

Secondly, David was also the name of a foreign exchange student whose host family just happened to be Raito's family. He was scouting out colleges in the area. Dave had been a full seven years Raito's senior, but the two of them never had a boring conversation.

Unlike Ryuzaki, who was _perpetually _boring.

Ryuzaki and Dave looked a lot alike, though, with the exception that Dave lacked the dark circles and actually possessed a good, thick, dark pair of eyebrows. He also had better posture.

Where was Dave from again?

"Somewhere near Cambridge," Raito offered.

"Does he look like Dave?"

Yep. Dad caught on pretty fast. "Uh, kind of," Raito replied. Soichiro laughed. The brunette crossed his arms and wondered what was so funny.

Noticing Raito's displeasure, his father chuckled, "You were so angry when he left. You stomped around the house and threw a temper-tantrum. Your mother and I were under the impression that you loved him."

----

Well this was new. L resembled someone Raito had met in the past? Someone he actually liked? Judging from Soichiro's ramblings, Raito much more than _liked_ this 'Dave' character.

"I did _not!_" Raito huffed and thumped the car door with the back of his fist.

Soichiro continued his hearty old-man-chuckle. "Alright, alright," he humored, "You were young. Friendlier too. How come you haven't invited any friends over to the house recently?"

L watched in amusement as Raito squirmed slightly in his seat. "I don't _make_ friends easily, Dad. Most people annoy me."

Soichiro nodded thoughtfully, then added, "But it's apparent that you like to make them _up_."

Oh, now that was too far. Raito's dad had been polite and understanding before now, but L doubted Kira would take his joking lightly. L didn't appreciate it either. "Asshole," he muttered.

"Ryuzaki just swore at you," deadpanned Raito.

"Ah, Sorry. I shouldn't have said that," apologized Soichiro while scratching his scalp.

"Damn right," growled L.

"Twice," Raito alerted his father.

L grinned lopsidedly at the mortal and said, "You _do_ know that you_ are_ acting like a child now, don't you?" Raito cast him a dirty look.

Hmm… Raito definitely cycled through moods quickly. A minute ago, he was feeling mischievous. Thirty seconds ago, he was flustered. Now he was angry. Raito was one big roller-coaster of emotion.

L sighed. The day had been a roller-coaster. Entrance exams, Hallucinations, Anti-Kiras…

While L was on the subject, he worried. He had to find out who this Anti-Kira of Ryuk's was. He had to do a little background research. Wherever Ryuk showed up during the day, his human must've been close behind.

Upon close reflection, L concluded that Teru was a possible suspect. There were times, though, when Ryuk had shown up and Teru had been nowhere in sight. It was foolish for him to make conjectures so soon, but L wondered how much time it would take before something deadly took place.

First thing was first, though. The immediate evil in Kira's world was his father. L had to assist him in dealing with Soichiro's nosing about.

As much as L would have loved to help Raito out, he couldn't find anything useful to say or do. Soichiro filled the silence with apologies, treatment suggestions, and questions about Raito's 'imaginary friend.'

'Imaginary friend' and 'Raito' were two words that didn't belong in the same sentence at any given time. It made him sound like a toddler.

A toddler who could snap peoples' heads off with a flick of the finger.

A shocked look suddenly came over Raito's face and L's nerves tensed. "We're not headed home, are we?" asked the brunette. His father sighed regretfully and ran his fingers over the rims of his glasses. "No, Raito, we're going to a psychiatrist."

L blinked, aghast. He had Raito figured out before today, didn't he? Either that or he was paranoid enough to take his son to the earliest meeting as possible.

Kira's eyebrows jutted out in odd, perturbed angles and a wide, anguished frown decorated his lips. Wrinkles of frustration began to multiply between his eyes and L knew that he would lash out with his claws at any second. Taking the Almighty Kira to a shrink was the most insulting action to be performed. Yet, L knew that Raito would contain himself in the presence of someone who was paid to believe that somewhere, somehow, he was sane.

His father, however, couldn't be counted so lucky.

"You… Why did you do that?" Raito yelled with his arms looping in great arcs across the sky, "Aren't we supposed to talk about this first?"

Soichiro hesitated, "I thought our ride in the car counted as 'talking,' you being you-"

"Me being me?" shrieked Raito. He drew his fists to the front of his body and shook them. "Dad, I didn't even know I was making him up until today!" L assumed it was in good, theatrical taste that Raito did several double-takes between the mini-death and Soichiro.

"You haven't talked to him the entire time we've been in the car," Raito's father remarked. The brunette slumped in his seat, discouraged. "Well, now that you're here, I don't think I _want_ to," he bit.

"The psychiatrist is probably going to want the two of you to talk so she knows what she's dealing with."

Oh boy. Raito's pride would have a field day. On the brighter side, however, he was actually talking to someone. Everyone else just couldn't see. L hoped Raito would take note of the upside and it would quell his humiliation.

Of course, this was purely wishful thinking on L's part.

Raito resigned himself quietly to his stagnant silence in the back seat and conversed with his father no longer. After two straight minutes of tense lack of action, L became bored. He tapped his fingers together and hummed something straight out of his imagination.

The trip to the psychiatrist's was long and tedious, not to mention the air, which could only be cut with a _very _sharp knife.

When the car finally slowed to a stop, L was halfway through the passenger side window and making faces at himself in the mirror. He casually floated in and out of the door, alighting awkwardly on a pot of pink flowers. Soichiro made toward Raito's door. L assumed he held the intention of opening it for him. Raito swung his door open by himself, nearly smacking his father in the face, and waltzed out with his hands in his pockets. Soichiro closed the door behind him.

L felt like he was watching a soap opera.

The dysfunctional duo marched over to a pair of glass doors which paid homage to the great god 'PUSH' and made their way inside. L concluded that it would be in Raito's best interest if he followed.

So he did.

L followed. Nothing more.

He would have remarked on the tastelessness of the beige walls on the building's interior, but determined Raito to be beyond the appreciation of dialogue. It was clear to everyone that he was angry.

But it was clear only to L that he was tense.

The rigid, straight gait in which Raito walked gave it all away. His shoulders were squared, his feet intersected his legs at perfect right angles, and his fists were clenched tightly at his sides. One quick examination of his face revealed that Raito's jaw was set and his eyes were focused straight ahead.

Soichiro exchanged greetings with a cherry-faced woman before she led them to a harmless-looking wooden door with a plant to its side. L followed them in.

He was appalled by what he saw.

There, sitting in a plush leather couch, with a cup of espresso in her beautifully manicured fingers, was what humans defined as a very,_ very_ pretty woman. She did the stereotype justice. Tall, slender figure, long, blonde, straight hair and bright, clear eyes… Obviously a foreigner.

Stupid foreigners…

All L could think of was that Raito had _better_ not eyeball her.

For her sake.

"Ah, Yagami-san," she shook Soichiro's hand. Her smiling, 'I want to help you _sooo_ much' eyes turned to Raito, "and you must be Raito-kun." She held a hand out for Raito to do as he would with it. To L's sadistic delight, Raito turned his nose up at her.

Score!

Raito wasn't interested!

L did a little dance near the doorway and cheerfully bounced onto the arm of an armchair. It may have been Raito's stubborn dislike of the situation which caused the rejection, but L was more than happy in the possibility. Raito was normally cool, collected, and polite about formalities. Currently, he was either pissed off or uninterested.

Both, L hoped.

With the skill of an expert, the maddeningly radiant woman announced, "Nice to meet you both. My name is Halle Lidner."

She continued from there, but L was so selfishly disgusted of her voice that he tuned her out and ventured elsewhere. He didn't venture farther than the next room, as he was mindful of Raito's unease at his lack of presence. He liked to think that Raito enjoyed his company.

He was probably just afraid to die.

…

L could dream.

----

"So his name is Ryuzaki?"

Raito resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It was the second time he'd come to see 'Just Call Me Halle' Lidner. The first day, his father had helpfully assumed that he would be too tired from testing to participate in any real counseling. Now, however, he was stuck.

Things weren't as bad as they could have been, though. He could have been assigned to an ugly, fat, balding man of a counselor. Instead, his counselor was relatively good-looking.

…_Relatively good-looking?_

Was that all Raito thought of her as? She had a perfect, soft face, flawless skin complexion, mesmerizing eyes, luscious lips, and sinful curves. And yet Raito couldn't bring himself to drool over her.

Was he _gay_ or something?

Any guy from school would be practically drowning in a puddle of drool and God knew what else. Then there was Raito. He tried his best to think of her naked, sweaty, writhing body begging from underneath him.

It did absolutely _nothing_ for him.

The realization began to dawn on him.

Raito was completely hopeless.

She coughed suggestively and Raito realized he hadn't answered her question. "Yeah," he grumbled finally.

Just Call Me Halle nodded to herself and folded her hands in her lap. "Your father also told me that he reminds you of someone you met in the past. Is that true?"

Raito glanced at Ryuzaki, who was bemusedly glaring at the counselor, and snorted, "Only a little."

"How so?"

"He looks like him, but more sleep-deprived. He doesn't act like him at all."

"Hmm…" she hummed thoughtfully, "That's strange."

Raito rolled his eyes. No. Everything was perfectly _normal_. He was just in a head-shrink's office because he _wanted_ to be.

She chuckled suddenly. Raito arched his eyebrows and crossed his arms at her. "You don't like me very much, do you?" she suggested knowingly.

Well, everyone always stressed to express one's feelings in a psychiatrist's office. "Actually, no," Raito deadpanned.

"Huh. Normally a guy your age would be hitting on me right now," she remarked, examining her fingernails, "Are you gay?"

"Firstly," Raito interjected, "I don't understand what that has to do with anything. Secondly, I hate everyone. _Everyone._"

Ryuzaki made a strange face at him.

"I see," she laughed, "All part of psychological profiling."

"Whatever," growled Raito.

Halle cut quickly into the original subject. "So… Your father told me what he thought was going on inside your head, but I want to hear from you. Tell me why you think you're seeing this person."

"High fever," Raito deadpanned.

Halle nodded as if she thought his half-hearted opinion was interesting. "Any other reasons you can think of?" she asked.

Raito quirked an eyebrow. "Like what?"

Halle shrugged her shoulders. "Family problems, an argument, anything you think might be an underlying cause." When Raito gave her a clueless look, she elaborated. "Things like this often occur with the help of an influential moment or object in someone's life. Do you feel like Ryuzaki is connected with your life in any way?"

He was like a drop of Pepsi in Raito's lemonade. He may have been small, but Raito could taste him everywhere.

…Bad context…

He squelched a dirty thought and said, "I'm not sure." Then, in an attempt to sound more helpful and treatable, he suggested, "I have a difficult time socializing with my peers I suppose…"

"Making friends?" Halle suggested.

"If you want to make me sound like a kindergartener, yes," Raito conceded.

"Alright," she nodded, arranging thoughts in her head with each bob. Raito could tell she was about to switch gears.

"Now, I know this is going to be awkward, but don't make a bigger deal out of it than it is."

Oh, fuck. Raito knew what was coming.

She continued, oblivious to the horror in Raito's eyes, "Whatever you say, I'm just here to listen. Pretend I'm not here if you want. Everything that you say in this room is confidential by your choice. I don't have to tell anything to anyone outside this room, not even your father, unless you let me. Kay?"

Raito groaned.

"I want you to imagine I'm not here, and I want you to talk to Ryuzaki for a minute."

Yep. Damn. This was going to be awkward.

"I just want to get an idea of what goes on between you two. I know I won't be able to hear what Ryuzaki says, but that doesn't matter. I want you two to be comfortable with each other."

Raito sardonically adored the way she said 'you two.' She wasn't paid for nothing.

"Okay, go!" she said all too enthusiastically.

Raito groaned and turned sideways on the armchair. Ryuzaki was perched expectantly on the end table. He blinked his huge, black, panda-eyes and said, "You know you aren't crazy. If anything, you should be smug about being able to talk to the supernatural."

"Oh?" Raito argued to provide Halle with something to listen to. He just wanted it to end. "Right now, I don't feel so special. Please, Ryuzaki, tell me, what about this is there to be _proud_ of?"

Ryuzaki fluffed out his feathers. "You're in quite the bad mood today."

"Duh," Raito growled, "I'm in a psych ward. This is all your fault, you know that?"

"I fail to see why," Ryuzaki deadpanned.

"If you didn't keep talking to me during class, this never would have happened. I wouldn't be fucking _crazy _right now!"

"You never were," the mini-death announced bravely.

"She thinks so," Raito pointed a thumb at Halle.

"Since when do you give a rat's ass what she thinks?" Ryuzaki argued.

Damn! He had a point. Raito sighed, defeated, but not for long. He needed to find something else to fill the time. He was beginning to squirm under the psychiatrist's gaze.

"Let's talk about something nicer," Raito offered.

Ryuzaki snorted, "What a surprise. I never expected you to suggest such a thing, Raito-kun."

"Nice, Ryuzaki."

"Quite," bit the mini-death, "though I am unsure of what, being of a 'nice' nature, there is to speak of between us."

Once again, Ryuzaki had a point. The air between them had been more than tense in the past week. A jolt of electricity had come along with Ryuzaki's unknowing confession of jealousy and the sting still lingered in Raito's head.

Half of him wanted to remember and beware Ryuzaki's words. Half of him wanted to cast the matter aside and forgive the mini-death.

Yet, no single fraction of Raito Yagami wanted to hate him for it.

"I think I can forgive you for your outburst that one night," Raito offered.

Ryuzaki gave him a mocking sneer. "Oh? I was not aware that jealousy against your friend was a mistake, Raito-kun."

"I'm _trying_ to be nice," he growled, grating his teeth together.

The mini-death gave him a considering once-over before accepting Raito's endeavors. "I take it you still think ill of me despite your forgiveness?" he assumed.

Raito glanced furtively at Halle. She was leaning over in her seat with genuine interest and tapping expectantly at the corner of one eye. This was what Raito was afraid of. She was paying way too much attention. He chose his words ambiguously. "Yeah, a little. It's… new."

"I thought you liked 'new.'"

"Not that much."

"I see." Ryuzaki then began chewing thoughtfully on his thumb. He tilted his head slightly and said, "You know, I like the idea of us being forced to talk."

Raito gave him a blank look.

"It straightens things out," Ryuzaki added.

Raito had to agree with him on that one. Being forced to sort differences out was better than letting them fester. However… if there were going to be more talks like this in the future, he needed a battle plan. He could slip up and say something stupid in front of Halle. God knew what she'd tell his father then.

"Except maybe I'll say something _wrong_. People tend to _think too much_," Raito said with an underlying tone of dire urgency. Luckily, Ryuzaki was well-versed in Raito's code talk. "I see," he mused around his thumb, "I'll warn you if I sense a dangerous topic. I might yell at you if you begin to ramble about something revealing as well."

"Good," agreed Raito. "How would yelling at me _help me out_ though?"

"Stutter if I yell at you. No, perhaps not. Stuttering would seem odd coming from one such as yourself." Ryuzaki then gave him a sparkling eye, "You can think on your feet, can't you? Raito-kun is very keen to improvise when the need arises."

"Sounds good." Raito took another look at the counselor. He needed to talk less ambiguously if he didn't want her suspecting. He forced a nervous laugh in Halle's direction, "I guess I've _ran out of stuff to say_. Give me a _word_ to talk about."

Ryuzaki got the hint once again. While the blonde woman said "How about chicken?" the mini-death suggested, "Use the word 'volcano' in a sentence if you want my help."

Raito nodded.

"Hey Ryuzaki," he addressed cheerily, "Do you like chicken?"

"You're a chicken," Ryuzaki shot back. The way his eyes glittered and his toes curled and relaxed didn't suggest malice, as his word choice did. Raito realized that Ryuzaki was making an attempt at small-talk.

Raito playfully replied, "That may be so, but you're full of shit."

----

"Judging from the information your son gave me, he may have imagined Ryuzaki up because he needed someone to talk to."

"A friend?"

"It would seem that way, but…"

"But what?"

"The two of them are anything but friendly toward one another."

Raito had sent L on a reconnaissance mission. His purpose was to eavesdrop on as much information as he could since Raito was waiting in the car like the good little boy his dad wanted him to be. He was to report on Halle's theories.

So far, she seemed to think that Raito was in need of an imaginary companion.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Soichiro demanded.

Halle waved him off. "First, I want to ask you a few things about his behavior. Have you ever caught him talking to Ryuzaki inside the household since his fever?"

"No," Raito's father announced. L rolled his eyes. Raito was only in his room, away from all family members, for most of the day.

"Hmm…" she mused, "This is only a theory. I can't determine exactly what's wrong with him yet, but I don't think he's merely fantasizing about an old friend."

Soichiro gulped.

"I think your son might be schizophrenic."

Oh my.

"Oh no," Soichiro despaired, deflating like a punctured parade balloon. Halle nodded curtly. "The damage may be permanent. There are pills, though. Schizophrenia is treatable."

"The last thing a kid his age needs is pills," Raito's father rasped.

"I agree," nodded Halle, "but if it isn't treated early on, the hallucinations may get worse. It may become difficult for him to discern reality from an imaginary world. He'll withdraw completely from society and it may be hard for him to continue with his life later on."

Raito's father sighed heavily through his nose and lamented with his hand to his chin. He stood there for quite a while, thinking. Suddenly, he shook his head in a defeated manner and asked, "When do we start?"

"First I have to figure out if it's schizophrenia we're dealing with. In the mean time, I want to learn whether or not Raito's hallucinations are an immediate danger to his health. In a sense, I'll be trying to make life between the two of them more bearable."

"There _aren't_ two of them!" insisted Soichiro.

"To your son, yes, there are two," Halle corrected sternly. "When I heard Raito talking to Ryuzaki earlier, he sounded very much convinced that he was talking to another person. He was very expressive and his arguments were energetic. At first, he sounded intimidated by my presence, but Ryuzaki said something to him and it was as if I was listening to him speak on the phone to another person. I'm not saying that conversations between your son and his hallucinations are encouraged, but I find that it's better to deal with these situations slowly. Make sure your son knows that Ryuzaki isn't really there, but don't oppress him."

Soichiro stayed quiet.

"Make sure he knows you care, but don't overdo it," she repeated for emphasis. "Schizophrenia tends to make patients more suicidal than normal. He's still a teenager, so your words influence him more than you know."

Soichiro gulped.

Halle nodded stiffly. "I can't prescribe any medication to him this early on, but I promise, I'll find out what's wrong with him as soon as I can."

L lost interest in the conversation. Mostly, Raito's father continued pleading against Raito's condition. Halle consistently replied that she was doing what she could.

When Soichiro sullenly made his way to the car, L flew past him and alighted in the seat at Raito's side. The brunette looked at him expectantly.

"She thinks you're a schizo," said L.

"A and W are going to have a field day," Raito muttered after fantastically rolling his eyes, "They're undoubtedly going to link my being the 'only survivor' and my insanity."

"Not insanity," L corrected.

"Pretty damn close," muttered Raito as he crossed his arms.

"You could have denied Soichiro's information and said that you were fine," the psychopomp pointed out.

"Then I would've seemed more suspicious," Raito snorted. He aimed a level, unwavering leer at L. "As careful as I was not to be seen, how long do you think it would take me to screw up again? My teachers have been given the task of watching every move I make. If I denied my father's accusations and they caught me again, I'd be in deep shit."

"True," admitted L, "But I so foolishly assumed that talking to me only darkened your day."

"I thought we agreed to end the derisive talk."

L nodded. "Yes," he then grinned mischievously, "But it's fun to get a rise out of you once in a while."

"We're not _that_ friendly yet, Ryuzaki," Raito warned.

L sat criss-cross in his seat and decided not to inform Raito of how happy the 'yet' made him. Adversely to Raito, L had enjoyed their forced conversation. Not only did they resolve a few festering matters, but the level of comfort Raito felt with him rose exponentially. L made sure of this when Raito tossed him a witty comeback somewhere amidst all the talking.

When Kira was happy, all was right and good in the world.

Speaking of Kiras, Ryuk's Anti-Kira had yet to make a move. Perhaps L was right and the shinigami was only trying to rile him up. Besides, Raito's imagination was the only reference L had to an Anti-Kira.

It had come completely out of Raito's head.

Still, it was possible. The possibility made L shiver.

Three.

If Ryuk wasn't lying, there were three.

However… if the Anti-Kiras were to be compared to the real thing, they were no more immortal than a rat was beneath the wheel of a car. Raito was no run-of-the-mill mortal. He could outwit and outlast any Anti-Kira who crossed his path. With L's intuitive mind by his side, he was unstoppable.

L looked from Raito to his father, who was entering the driver's seat and starting the car. Soichiro stole an endearing glance at his son and sighed.

L laughed.

Despite what his father thought, Raito was no nutcase.

He was Schizo-Kira, the Great and Invincible.

----

Chibi Raito: I'm a friggin' schizo. Look what you did!

Me: It's good plot! Plus, you got some alone-time with Mr. Psychopomp.

Chibi L: Do you know how creepy that sounds?

Me: Yes.

Chibi Misa: Love? Hate? Cake? Cookies? Want to do the Hokey-Pokey? Swirl wants to know what you thought.

Me: We gots us lotsa plotness and cuteness and fluffehness and cliffhangerness.

Chibi Raito: With a side of GRAMMAR if you please.

Me: I can make up words if I want.

Chibi Raito: 1 H4Yt y00!

Me: Yes. That's nice. Anyone wanna' take a guess as to who my three lovely, possible X-Kiras are? You know, for inspiration and such? Isn't it nice to know you have an influence in someone else's fanfiction?

Chibi L: Cookies:3

Chibi Misa: Cookies for reviewers! Swirly loves you ALL! Review, review, review!


	9. Backflip

**DS**

**Disclaimer: **Oh look! A bird!

Me: Sorry for posting so goddamn late. I was being a Narutard all month :D

Chibi Raito: You got a corrective review.

Me: I know.

Chibi Raito: You gonna' defend your position?

Me: Damn right:3 I recently got a review saying that Raito would have died of his fever in chapter one. Either that or he'd have severe brain damage. So here's the deal. Funny story.

Chibi L: Ooh! A story! I can't wait!

Me: During one Superbowl, I had a fever of one hundred and five. I had no ice and no fever reducers. No meds at all. All this fever did was make me feel uncomfortable. That, and I was thoroughly convinced that Jesus was on the Seahawks' team... But that's a minor detail. The point is, I'm perfectly fine. I have no brain damage whatsoever (as if I can defend that point with _my_ writing style). Since this fever did nothing to me, I figured some guy as cool as Raito could stand a hundred and seven. Plus, I did research and the highest fever was higher.

Chibi Raito: Nice. I'm going to kill you, by the way.

Me: Eep!

Chibi L: No! If she dies, we die.

Chibi Raito: …You win this time…

Me: Yosh!

Chibi Misa: Read, review, and relax!

**D S 9**

_L heard a suggestive cough from over his shoulder. He looked back suspiciously to find a scowling portrait of pale uneasiness framed by a halo of white hair._

_Near._

_What was Near doing here? Near hated tennis! L had taken a day off from carting souls back and forth through dimensions to watch a junior championship tennis match. He desperately wanted to participate, because he was just _that _good, but was unable to due to the unfortunate trip he'd taken down his front steps. His twisted ankle smarted whenever he walked on it._

_Back to the present…_

"_What are you doing here?" L demanded flatly._

_Near shuffled his feet. "I have something I need to talk to you about," he stated rather blatantly._

_L sat in his seat for several seconds before he realized that whatever Near had to talk about was too private to speak of in open air. Huffing boredly to himself and wondering what the white-haired psychopomp had to talk about, L rose out of his seat and padded over to Near._

_The agitated mini-death led him out of the bleachers and into the bathroom._

_The bathroom._

Women_ discussed things in the bathroom._

_Whatever Near's predicament, it was almost certainly about Mello._

"_So," L began disinterestedly, "Where's Mello?"_

"_Staying at my house for the night," Near mentioned with his posture somewhat straighter and prouder than before. L congratulated him._

"_You wanted to talk to me about something?" L hinted, trying to get Near to explain what was going on._

_Near blinked once, as if remembering something, and then apologized, "Yes, sorry. It's… actually, it's about Mello."_

_Go figure._

_In spite of his Smart-Alec mind, L remained the interested friend he wanted to be and asked Near just what about Mello was wrong._

"_Well, Mello likes to jump around on the human world's space-time continuum. He doesn't really like to stay in one spot for more than one week. He's been to the past, the present, the future… anywhere," Near explained hesitantly, "But…"_

"_But what?" L asked, intrigued by Near's introduction._

"_Well…" Near shuffled his feet again in an unusual display of discomfort, "Lately, he's been just hanging around in one spot."_

_L quirked an eyebrow. "Where is this 'one spot' of his?"_

"_Late Twentieth century Los Angeles," came the forced reply, "The year Nineteen eighty three, to be exact."_

_L nodded thoughtfully to himself. "You said he had a mob there," he suggested helpfully._

"_Yes," Near muttered, "But he's had other gangs as well. He gets bored of them rather quickly. In about two weeks, actually."_

"_And how long has he been staying in Los Angeles?"_

"_Over three months."_

_L crooned appraisingly to himself. "How'd you manage to get him here?"_

"_I told him that there was a chocolate fountain in my backyard," Near admitted craftily._

_L snorted. "He believed you?"_

"_Yes," shrugged Near, "But he's quite angry at me now. He says he's leaving for L.A. again after tonight."_

_The raccoon-eyed mini-death patted his friend sympathetically on the shoulder. "Has he mentioned any reason for staying there?"_

"_Not really," remarked Near, "But…" Suddenly, the white-haired psychopomp's eyes lit up with understanding. "I think he's been disappearing lately. We'll be sitting in his apartment above the mob's center of operations and I'll look away for just one second. When I look back, he's gone! Just like that!"_

_This was interesting. So Mello was sneaking off, quite literally, whenever Near had his back turned. "How long is he gone for?" L asked with a thumb to his lips._

"_Minimally, about two hours. On average, four. The longest he's been gone, though, is two days."_

_Two days? That was a little extreme._

"_It worries me," Near said as he played with the sleeves of his shirt. "When I can't see him, I can't watch over him. He has millions of different people in millions of different eras looking for him. He could be killed! Or… or worse…" Near suddenly stopped worrying the seams of his sweater. "I just realized that, most of the time, he's gone at night. Whenever I fall asleep by accident, I wake up and he isn't there. When he disappears at night, he's gone until the middle of the next day."_

_L glared flatly at nothing in particular. "I see where this is going…"_

_Near gazed up at L with his huge, confused, dark eyes. "L," he murmured, "Do you think he's seeing someone else?"_

----

Imagine that.

L had caught himself reminiscing.

Granted, there wasn't much else to do in Raito's psychiatric meeting. Halle had gradually lessened the amount of conversations between himself and Raito. L recognized this as an attempt to ease the troubled teenager away from his made-up world.

Hah.

Made up _his ass_.

Still, Raito diligently played the part of the mentally incorrect adolescent and participated in Halle's psychiatric sessions as best he could.

L missed their talks. Halle once forced Raito to talk with L about his recent graduation from high school. L responded with praise Raito already knew he had. Raito had to ask him whether or not L graduated from high school. L replied that no, he hadn't, because where he came from, school didn't exist.

That was good enough for Halle.

She had them talk about everything from cars to global warming. She even forced Raito to ask L what his favorite color was.

Halle thought carefully over everything she heard. L noticed and informed Raito that she took on a much more serious look when his back was turned. Occasionally, she wrote things down on a pad of paper and hid it in her coat.

L found this suspicious.

She may not have been able to tell the outside world information about Raito's condition without his consent, but she sure as hell could write something down, _'accidentally'_ drop it, and forget it somewhere.

Despite L's suspicion against her, the background research he'd done on her while Raito was asleep provided proof that she was who she said she was. Halle Lidner was fresh out of college with a master's degree in psychiatry. She was single, had no kids, and lived in a small apartment complex just outside of the greater Tokyo area.

Yet, there was a large possibility that she was just as two-faced as Raito.

"Raito-kun," Two-Faced Halle crashed L's train of thought, "I'd like you to have another conversation with Ryuzaki, just to make things clear."

"Alright," the unhappy, brunette, Yagami-boy grumbled, "What do you want me to talk about _this_ time?"

"I want you to talk about Kira."

L's eyes snapped open and he tilted his head in Halle's general direction. He glared analytically into her annoyingly attentive face. What was she getting at?

"God," hissed Kira, "He makes me so mad, I feel like a _volcano_. I just want to blow up."

"Nice work," commented L while recognizing Raito's plea for help. L had told him long ago to use the word 'volcano' in a sentence if he felt threatened. "She seems rather suspicious, Raito-kun," L explained as Halle condoled Raito about his strong feelings toward the mass-murderer. "Try not to go into too much detail about hating Kira. I don't doubt that she's answering to a higher power. If you ramble on and on about your 'anger,' your powerful, adverse emotions to a Kira supporter could make you a suspect."

Raito dipped his head in a barely noticeable affirmative.

He turned his head to L, closing his eyes and breathing deeply through his nose in a remarkable impression of cooling down. "Alright, Ryuzaki," he growled, "What do you think about Kira?"

L searched a moment for the best answer. Quite suddenly, he came up with one that Raito may not have expected. "I believe that Kira isn't a god at all."

Raito blinked, uncertain of L's answer. The psychopomp knew he would be. He pressed a thoughtful thumb to his lips. "Go ahead, Raito-kun," he encouraged, "Tell her."

When the mortal hesitated still, L grinned slyly and said, "Trust me."

"…Ryuzaki believes," Raito began warily, "that Kira isn't a god."

Halle's eyes widened ever so slightly. L smirked. That wasn't her professional 'Oh, darn. I didn't know that was coming' look. It was a gaze of shock. She'd been taken completely by surprise.

"That's strange," she murmured, "Do go on."

Raito turned back around, faced L, and gave him a look that said, 'Do you have any idea what you're _saying?_' Before he could speak for or against L's opinions, though, L made himself heard. "Raito-kun," he hushed, "believe me when I say this is the best course of action. Contradict me. Tell me I'm a fool and you _know_ Kira is a god. Yet… Don't make him sound like a god of all things bright and happy. Make him sound evil. You were victimized by one of his heart attacks after all."

L could tell by the apprehension in Raito's eyes that he wasn't entirely trusting of the mini-death's judgment. Quite out of the blue, though, he nodded in dark realization and bit his bottom lip. "No, you idiot," he growled, "I _know _Kira's a god! He can't be human! It's impossible for a human to do the things he does!"

"True, true," L nodded, "One person cannot perform an action against crime on this scale. However…" he dragged his thumb around on his lips, "An _organization_ can."

Raito, still not quite seeing clearly, gave him a questioning look. "You're making no sense," he argued.

L gave him a break. "This woman is not only suspicious, but she appears to be a quite accomplished professor in the function of the human mind," he explained, "Furthermore, I overheard her discussing with your father about how my existence may be linked to your innermost subconscious. She told your father that I might be a manifestation of your true feelings. If she's taking notes on our conversations, I'm the one she's noting, not you."

Raito leaned in with his head on his fist, looking profoundly thoughtful.

In the interest of moving his thought process along, L elaborated. "Therefore," he announced, "I believe it is in your best interest if I think of Kira not as an empyrean being, but as a lowly, mundane mortal. Not only does it drive Halle's superiors in circles, but it also cuts you slack. Kira's innermost thoughts on himself would be 'Oh, yes! I'm a god! I have power over all I survey!' I saw the look in Halle's eyes at my reply and she was clearly taken aback by it." He sighed, "I believe that you already may be suspected as Kira."

Raito's blinked slowly in a manner that suggested he already knew that.

"They may reconsider," L ensured, "if enough unexpected opinions of mine occur." He leaned in and announced, "If Kira is as self-righteous as you've led the law to believe, thinking of himself as a mere, stupid, earthly being would be unacceptable."

Raito shook his head. Unexpectedly, he returned to answering L's original reply. "Fuckin' idiot. An organization? What sort of organization could do that? Things aren't that simple."

Then, one of Raito's long-lashed, luxuriously mocha-colored eyes winked at him.

Good. So he understood.

"Glad we agree," L nodded regally.

"He thinks it's a group of people?" Halle interjected suddenly. L's eyes lit up.

Bingo.

The dark look in Raito's eyes suggested that he already knew what L was planning, but the psychopomp decided to fill him in anyway. "Part two of my plan," L explained. "I have a growing suspicion that she answers to our nemeses, A and W." He bit his thumb excitedly and bounced slightly on the spot. "This is our chance to turn her on her own superiors."

Raito gave him a sly look. "I think it's a load of bullshit," he shrugged at Halle for good effect, "How could any number of humans just cause heart attacks like that?"

"Ask him," Halle deadpanned.

Raito turned around and glared in L's direction under the pretense of being severely pissed-off. "You heard me," he spat.

L went into detail about super-drugs, super-humans, and other incredible things. Raito used some of these to disinterestedly explain L's 'misguided' opinions to Halle while disguising his own thoughts as L's as well. "He says the organization must be either too small or too secretive to be noticed," scoffed Raito. "Either that or they have to be functioning under the shadow of their own fame…" he added a grumbled "Bullshit" to the end of his sentence to make it sound more believable.

L praised Raito's way with words. Functioning under the shadow of their own fame, eh? So poetically put…

"And you don't agree with this?" Halle mused after a long silence.

Raito scoffed. "Are you kidding? I know what I felt! That's that! Let him believe what he wants…"

Ah… Raito was manipulating Halle's supposed beliefs that L was his subconscious. 'Let him believe what he wants' was a statement of surrender; giving ground to his conscience. L wondered if Halle would pick it up.

As L had predicted, she remained very, very quiet. He noticed that she'd scribbled on her small, concealed notepad, but stopped when Raito mentioned L's idea of an organization at fault. It was a sign as subtle as any, but L knew she was having second thoughts.

"Well," she breathed a puff of air into her bangs, "I'd say that's all the time we have today. It's been nice talking to you, Yagami-kun."

Raito shook hands with her on his way out. L was about to follow him when suddenly, he got an idea. "Don't go too far, Raito-kun," L hollered, "I'll be at the subway station in a minute."

Raito made an 'okay' symbol with the fingers on his right hand and kept walking.

L saw him out the building's front door before stalking back into Halle's room. He wanted to see just how big of an impact Raito's charade had made.

Halle sat in her chair, leaning back and giving the ceiling a meditative leer. L glanced out the window to make sure Raito was getting along alright. Sure enough, the brunette mortal was walking down the street toward the subway station. Nothing was wrong.

Halle moved.

L's eyes were instantly trained on her disgustingly slender, curvy form as she rose from the couch and made for the phone. The beeping, bleeping noise of buttons being pushed reached L's ears.

And then, nothing.

Waiting for the called to answer the caller.

Someone picked up.

"Gevanni, this is Lidner." Halle reported, "I have something I want to talk to you about…"

----

Raito strolled down the street quite inconspicuously. There was nothing eye-catching about the way he stood, the clothes he wore, or the way he walked. In short, there was nothing remarkable about one Raito Yagami.

So why was someone following him?

The brunette stole a furtive glance into a round mirror at one corner of the station's entryway.

Yes, he knew he was being followed. He'd known for the last block and a half. Unlike Raito, his stalker glared out from the cloud like a black sheep. Absolutely _no one _would wear a black trench coat coupled with sleek sunglasses and work boots on a sunny afternoon.

No one.

When Raito first noticed him, he hadn't thought much about him. As time drew on and steps accumulated, though, he began to notice that the man would _not turn away_. The suspicious Yagami boy had taken into account that his stalker may have merely been interested in taking the same subway route as he, but his sunglasses made Raito wary. Though he could not see his pursuer's eyes, he got the burning, withering feeling that he was being watched.

Raito rounded the corner. Sure enough, his stalker followed. Raito had hoped to make himself less noticeable in the bustling, pushing, shouting crowd of commuters, but to no avail. It appeared that his pursuer was equipped with some strange form of Yagami-dar. Raito ducked left, the man followed. Raito purchased a subway coin, the man did likewise. Raito sat down at one side of the station, the man sat directly opposite.

The way he took a gander about the room every time Raito moved his head wasn't a good sign either. Raito wondered distantly where Ryuzaki was.

The brunette could assume that it was his mind overreacting when he described this unknown person. He didn't look particularly Japanese. Perhaps he was a foreigner, overdressed and over-observant as a precaution.

A possibility.

Still, the adrenaline rush inside of his chest begged to differ. Being stalked by a government agent was much more exciting.

As Raito sat at his bench and mulled over each possibility, a scraggly, long-legged thing in jeans and a white sweater popped out of the ceiling and looked around. Raito glanced upward at it.

It was Ryuzaki.

As relieved as Raito was, he didn't show it. Who knew what the man at the opposite side of the terminal was looking for?

Ryuzaki spotted him with little effort and sailed down to greet him. "Raito-kun!" he addressed excitedly, "I've found something out. You want to know what this is, yes?"

Raito said nothing. Noting his strange behavior, the mini-death searched Kira's eyes for a hint. Once Raito had his eye-contact, he slowly dragged his eyes over an invisible horizon and rested his gaze on a spot just through the man he was apprehensive about.

Ryuzaki blinked his black-rimmed eyes for a split second before humming perceptively to himself. "I see. So they are after you after all?"

Raito nodded shallowly.

The psychopomp slipped a thumb between his lips and slid it along his teeth. "Hmm," he mumbled absently, "This could be a problem." He then snapped his gaze back to Raito and announced, "After you left, Halle called a man on the phone: Gevanni, she named him. Our little charade may have worked, but the two seem to be very adept at solving problems together."

_Solving… problems…_

_Together?_

"I know what you're thinking," remarked Ryuzaki. "I thought that too. It's possible, but highly improbable."

Raito knew what the psychopomp was talking about. If A and W suspected him of being Kira, even _one_ of them would never make contact with him. Still… if these detectives were as desperate as Raito hoped they were, they would be willing to risk each other's lives. If one of them met up with Raito and died, the other would be able to infer that he was Kira.

Two people were much more difficult to kill than one.

But back to the present…

His subway train was screeching into the station.

Sighing nonchalantly to himself and swiping his palms across the back of his jeans, Raito made his way for the train. Passengers were already pooling at the sliding doors and vying to be the first ones out. Equally rowdy crowds were swarming around the outside of the doors. When they all simultaneously jerked open, a yin-yang of flowing people rushed in and out from either side.

Raito heard Ryuzaki mumble a comment about how similar Tokyo was to a beehive before scrambling through the top of the train. The brunette followed him into the packed car and snagged a coffee-stained seat nearest to the window.

It was from this vantage point that Raito Yagami watched his stalker enter the subway car. "He appears to be a foreigner," inferred Ryuzaki from his roost near the ceiling. "Why would your enemies send a foreign spy after you, I wonder?"

Possibly in the interest of saving their own skins. Foreign agents could be A and W's canaries in the massive coal-mine of Tokyo. They were merely pawns to narrow down the pool of suspects.

Raito wondered if Ryuzaki held the same opinion.

The man tried to offset his conspicuous outfit in choosing the most inconspicuous spot to stand: One foot directly to the left of _the middle of everything_.

"Raito-kun," came Ryuzaki's enlightened voice.

Raito focused his attention skyward under the guise of being profoundly bored. Seeing that he had Kira's attention, the psychopomp continued. "If you want, I can make a few observations that may help you later."

Since when did Raito _not_ want him to do that?

Raito yawned and nodded his head at the same time.

"Good," hummed Ryuzaki. "In observing this stalker of yours, I have noticed a few things. Firstly, I believe he has blue eyes."

Raito didn't ask how the mini-death could have noticed through those sunglasses.

"Secondly," Ryuzaki continued, "He appears to be engaged. There is a ring on his left hand."

And how did Ryuzaki know this man didn't merely like to accessorize? Raito supposed that, in living so long, the mini-death knew the difference between an ordinary ring and an engagement ring.

"Thirdly, we were right to assume that he's a government agent. He favors the right side of his overcoat. Furthermore, the right side sags much more than the left, as if he's carrying something heavy in a single pocket. When he got into the subway car, due to the crowd, he was unable to enter without colliding with the wall on his right side."

Raito gave him a look that said 'and..?'

"And his coat made a very heavy clanking noise." Ryuzaki stuck his feet to the grooves in the ceiling and hung just above Raito. "I think he has a gun in his pocket."

Raito quirked an eyebrow. Couldn't Ryuzaki sneak over there and check his pockets?

The mini-death's eyes lit up. "You're quite right," he said. Before Raito could glare at him for reading his mind like an open book, Ryuzaki was off like a shot. He crawled across the ceiling in a manner that would have made Spider-man drool and slowly crept toward Raito's stalker.

The brunette turned his head slightly and gazed out the window, paying close attention to his peripheral vision.

Ryuzaki oozed halfway into the wall and started carefully prodding the man's coat pockets. It didn't take long before the psychopomp found what he was looking for. Quite suddenly, in the middle of examining the third pocket, Ryuzaki smirked with satisfaction. He deftly reached further into the pocket and half-closed his eyes in concentration.

Two seconds later and the mini-death had vaulted himself back across the room.

"He has a Sig-Sauer handgun along with a pistol I couldn't identify," Ryuzaki mentioned with a troubled thumb to his lips. "He has plenty of ammunition as well. It's a miracle he was able to get past security."

Yes, definitely a miracle.

Unless a higher power planned it that way.

"Shinigami may be at work here," mused Ryuzaki, voicing Raito's thoughts. "Though I think a shinigami's notebook has rules against involving more than one person per entry."

Raito gave him a questioning look.

"A shinigami cannot make a person kill another person," clarified Ryuzaki. "Unless…" Suddenly, a very depressed and worrisome droop found its way into nearly every aspect of Ryuzaki's face. This greatly worried Raito, who was having trouble hiding his apprehension from the man across the subway car.

"Unless what?" Raito hissed through his teeth.

Ryuzaki cast him a woeful look. "Unless the shinigami have found the loophole in the system."

Raito tried not to look as shocked as he felt. Loophole? What loophole?

Ryuzaki sighed, "One shinigami cannot involve more than one person per entry, but if two shinigami intertwine the deaths of two people, it can be done."

Raito blinked at him.

…_What?_

"If a shinigami were to write, 'So-and-so slipped past all security devices and entered such-and-such subway car, shooting all ammunition in random directions. The very last bullet ricocheted off of the side of the car and hit him in the head, killing him instantly,' then another shinigami could write, 'Raito Yagami bled to death in such-and-such subway car when several stray bullets pierced his chest.'"

Raito gulped.

"You see?" lamented Ryuzaki.

Rhinos stampeding through his lungs, the Yagami boy rigidly rested his head on the window and awaited his doom. What if Ryuzaki was right? What if the shinigami were teaming up against him? What if Raito died?

Ryuzaki was proof that there was life after death, but some primeval part of Raito's psyche still feared it more than anything. Death was wrong, wrong, wrong! Raito didn't want to die!

Something shifted in place on Raito's side. Fearing the worst, his body seized up and the hair on the back of his neck rose out like a field of needles.

Nothing happened.

Still on edge, Raito's eyes roamed over to the offending side, irises mere amber ribbons surrounding massive pools of black.

The movement he saw earlier had been Ryuzaki.

The psychopomp wordlessly floated up from his spot near Raito and slithered effortlessly across the ceiling. Raito's spine prickled as he wondered what the mini-death was planning.

He focused his attention out the window again, trying to keep his cool and keep an eye on Ryuzaki at the same time. The psychopomp was digging through Raito's stalker's pockets again. This time, though, he had gingerly undone the buttons on each pocket.

What the fuck was he doing?

A frustrated and somewhat frantic look flashed through Ryuzaki's face and he temporarily abandoned his post. He disappeared beneath the seats of various people and reappeared a minute later sliding a pair of keys across the floor. Amidst the clanking and bustling of the subway car, Ryuzaki was able to tear one of the keys away from the key ring unnoticed.

It was with this key of his that he carefully reached into the man's pocket.

Raito wondered what he could possibly need another person's key for.

Suddenly, light flooded the dark subway car. The train had pulled into the next station. Raito sighed with relief. The ride was half over. People throughout the car began bunching up at the door like a clot in an artery. As these loud, noisy, pushing, shoving people began to accumulate…

Raito found that he was no longer able to see Ryuzaki.

A lump formed in his throat. The rational side of his mind reasoned that just because Raito couldn't see him, it didn't mean that Ryuzaki was going do disappear. The other side, and currently the winning side, told the panicking brunette that they'd been separated.

Raito had been separated from Ryuzaki.

Something horrible could happen in an instant.

Keeping his face carefully neutral, Kira subconsciously pushed himself as far into the corner as he could and braced his feet roughly against the bolted-down legs of the bench in front of him. As the crowd began to sort itself out and Ryuzaki was _still_ nowhere to be seen, Raito's ears started to ring. He could see half of the man across the room, but not Ryuzaki. When the man shuffled and reached a hand into the side of his coat that Raito couldn't see- the right side- Raito's jaw set and his tongue went dry. His heart was beating so hard, it felt as if it were trying to break through his ribcage and fly away.

This was it. He was going to have to blow his cover. Raito was going to have to kill this guy before he killed Raito. He knew he was falling straight into A and W's trap, but if he didn't do something soon, he'd die. Raito clenched his thumb and middle finger together, almost ready to snap his stalker's lights out.

Suddenly, the man's eyebrows shot up and his jaw came unhinged. He flinched and shot a hand into his overcoat, causing even the hair on Raito's head to fluff out in fear.

"We're safe," panted a taxed voice to Raito's side.

The brunette looked over his shoulder in alarm at the sudden vocalization. His heart went from the top of his chest to the pit of his gut in a second. Through the pain and stress throughout his body, Raito was relieved to see Ryuzaki perched rigidly on the wall next to him.

"I thought at first that the weapons were too large to fit unnoticed in those pockets of his," Ryuzaki breathed, "and it turns out I was right. He had extra large pockets only accessible from the inside of his coat. I had to rip through the lowest pocket to get to them."

Raito's fingers went lax and he melted into his chair.

Ryuzaki exhaled a long, shaky sigh. "The guns were too big to fit through the hole I created, so I took the ammunition instead."

Oh, thank God. Did he get the bullets-

"The Sig-Sauer was unarmed," sighed Ryuzaki, speaking Raito's mind again, "Probably for use as a bluff. Only the pistol was loaded."

So what did he-

"So I took it apart."

If he took it apart, then there would be-

"I put it back together. Leaving unwanted evidence of foul play wouldn't be very productive, would it?"

He took a gun apart and put it back together _in thirty seconds?_ How the hell did he manage that?

Ryuzaki turned and faced Raito, his panda-eyes burning. The mini-death's fists were clenched at his sides and his shoulders were squared resolutely. "I will _not_ let you die, Raito-kun," he announced with his voice halfway to a yell,"I will _not_ let you die."

----

L was glad to be out of the subway.

Not only did he leave Raito's shadow behind, but also the reminder of all of the stupid mistakes L had made.

Mistake number one: L had become emotional. He had panicked. He'd found the worst possible situation and dwelled on it. He wasn't even sure whether or not shinigami were allowed to work together.

Mistake number two: He had made a scene for Raito's stalker to elaborate on. It's his first day tailing Raito Yagami and what happens? Suddenly, a mysterious hole appears in the bottom of his coat and all of his ammunition is gone, _including_ the rounds he loaded into his pistol. Suspicious? Fuck yes.

Mistake number three: In putting the pistol back together after he ruined it, L only added to the mysterious factor of the situation. L could have made it look like the gun was poorly built and that it simply fell apart. No! He had to put the thing back together! His own logic had worked against him! He wasn't eliminating suspicion by repairing the gun, he was creating it!

In short, L had backed Raito into a corner.

L.

_The_ L.

The psychopomp who never _ever_ made mistakes.

…

L was depressed.

"It has come to my attention that what I did in the subway train may not have been in your best interest, Raito-kun," L moped.

Raito said nothing.

"They'll likely suspect you even more now," L added despairingly, hoping to get a reaction out of Raito.

Raito said nothing.

Yes… chances were, he already knew that. Raito may have needed L's assistance in impromptu emergencies, but he was perfectly capable of thinking for himself. Given the proper time and space, Raito was very good at thinking.

"You don't need to apologize."

L was suddenly ripped away from his train of thought by Raito's calm, collected voice. Was Raito forgiving him? No. That wasn't the Kira L knew.

"There was no easy way out," Raito continued with his hands in his pockets, "After all, if he tails me more, I may get an opportunity to find out which organization he belongs to."

L's ears must have been deceiving him. Either that or Raito had been abducted by aliens and substituted for an android while the mini-death wasn't looking.

"Pardon?" L inquired lamely, trotting up to Raito's side and tilting his head as he walked.

Raito closed his eyes and leaned his head back. "You did what you thought was best and…" he breathed a reluctant sigh through his nose.

"And?" L egged, intrigued by Raito's sympathy.

"…And you may have saved my life," Raito exhaled in one grateful breath, "Thank you."

L was speechless. This was _definitely_ not the Raito he knew. "You're forgiving me?" he asked disbelievingly with a thumb to his lips. "Better, still, you're thanking me, Raito-kun?"

Raito opened his eyes again and graced L with a sidelong glare. "Don't think too much about it."

L knew what that meant. 'Yes, Ryuzaki, you're my friend. That's _it_.' Raito was still wary about his sexual orientation. Hmph! As if Raito could be molested by a breeze of chilled air.

…

…Wait.

L could make it work.

Raito had probably already taken this into account.

L fell back and plodded silently behind him.

Without much ado, L was walking through Raito's door. The aforementioned teen hollered into the house. No one answered. That was definitely odd…

It was much too quiet.

L commented on the silence. "Normally, your mother is home right now," he stated what Raito already knew, "Something is amiss."

Raito furtively climbed the stairs and made for his room. L followed. He examined the door before opening it, but only for a split second. This short analysis led L to believe that something was definitely wrong, and Raito knew all about it.

Seeing as how Raito was making no move to notice him, L lurked about his doorway and scrutinized it. The paper he had placed between the door and the frame had been there prior to Raito's opening it, so it appeared as if the teen had nothing to worry about. However…

The small piece of led he inserted in the hinge had broken, suggesting that someone had been in his room. Whoever had infiltrated Raito's personal space had done so with the intention of leaving no evidence, the paper proved that much.

At first, L thought that the paper was Raito's only means of security. That was until he noticed the graphite led on the top hinge of his door. The led was his true alarm system. The paper was a decoy.

Interesting.

"Breaking and entering," L mused aloud, "What a dirty trick." He then took a gander around the innocent room. Everything seemed as it should have been. Everything was neat and orderly, just as Raito had left it.

And yet, there was an extra presence in the room. It was a presence that was not entirely welcome. Mechanical.

On a whim, L picked a spot above Raito's wall-mounted digital clock and examined it. Stuck to the roof of the screen was a tiny mechanism with a tiny antenna, altogether measuring less than a dime in volume. L peered accusingly into a microscopic, glossy half-dome at the front of the machine.

It was a camera.

Someone had come into Raito's room and rigged it while he was out.

"I've found a camera," he informed Raito. "I think it's safe to assume that there's more than one." Seeing as how Raito wouldn't answer him, given the situation, L rambled on. "They will probably be active as long as A and W suspect you."

L bit his thumb dejectedly. "I feel somewhat responsible for this trouble. These cameras will be here longer now…"

Raito gave him a sidelong look that said, 'Stop griping and help me look for more cameras.'

L complied.

While Raito busied himself with pretending to be the normal teenager he wasn't, L scaled the wall and scanned the room for any other useful hiding places.

He took A and W's interests to heart. If they had rigged the room, they would want a camera in every corner of the room. They wouldn't leave a single blind spot. Chances were, the room was bugged as well. This was the reason for Raito's silence.

Hmm…

This was going to be tricky.

Raito didn't want all of these cameras in his room, and neither did L. It was an invasion of privacy. Plus, Raito couldn't do his work when he was being watched. Tailed from outside his room, observed from inside.

L didn't like it.

Not one bit.

Either Raito would have to find a new hideout, or he'd have to convince the police as soon as possible that he was just an average teenage genius.

While L was locating various cameras, Raito had taken a sudden interest in his e-mail inbox. "Wonder what kind of mail I have today," he whistled drearily to himself. L understood this as his cue to zip over to the computer and examine what was on the screen. He alighted daintily on the desk and crouched on all fours to peer accusingly at whatever e-mail message was on Raito's screen.

_Just another E-mail_

He glared at the sender. It was an e-mail from Mikami.

L cast Raito a scornful look. "Well, what are you waiting for?" he gnarred, "Trash it!"

As if to spite L, Raito hummed interestedly to himself and clicked on it. The psychopomp cast Kira a baleful look. "The Devil would be proud."

He tore his gaze away from Raito's face when the corner of the mortal's lips twitched. L scanned the e-mail to find the culprit of this sudden spastic movement.

_Raito-kun,_

_You truly are amazing. I overheard my fellow examiners talking about how incredibly high your test scores were. I don't think you missed anything._

_You're amazing in other ways as well._

L just _knew _this was the part in the message where he was going to scream and tear his hair out. Unwilling though he was, he dragged his pupils across the screen.

_I don't know if it's your eyes, your smile, the way you talk, or if it's just you, but there's something about you that makes me crazy. I say crazy things, I do crazy things… the works. I'll even go as far as to say that you make me _think_ crazy things._

_I sound like a complete idiot and you're way out of my league, I know. To top things off, I'm in college. It's not that awkward though, considering that you will most definitely be accepted into To-Oh University. We'll both be in college together._

_I never had a way with words, so I won't be surprised if you turn me down, but I'd like to have the privilege of doing at least one thing for you._

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. L didn't want to read the rest. He couldn't! Mikami couldn't… no! He just couldn't! _Raito_ couldn't… The sheer mechanics of it were mind-boggling! Nevertheless, his pessimism wanted the satisfaction of knowing just how horrible L's future would be. His pessimism was not disappointed.

L read it and gagged.

_Please let me take you out._

L stopped right there and squealed. Oh! The horror! The strangling, suffocating, shrieking horror! Raito couldn't possibly accept! No! No, he could _not!_ L informed him of this immediately.

"You cannot accept, Raito-kun. I won't let you."

Raito grinned at the screen as if to say, 'Oh yes? And tell me, Ryuzaki, just how are you not going to let me?'

L clenched his eyes shut and wound his hands roughly into his hair. This was not happening. L jerked unevenly on his hair and told himself that something this bad couldn't possibly be happening.

Raito hit the reply button.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no-

_Teru-san,_

_I'm flattered that you think of me in such a way. Personally, I don't find anything extraordinary about my eyes, my smile, the way I talk, or myself in general-_

Narcissistic liar!

_-but I'm glad you think otherwise. You have no idea how happy this e-mail made me._

Yeah? Well, he was only happy because he made L the most jealous creature on the face of the planet!

…Right?

"Please tell me you're not accepting, Raito-kun!" L pleaded pathetically with his hands clasped in front of his face. "If you're saying 'yes,' just to make me mad, you're a horrible man. No one should play with a human's emotions like that, not even you."

Raito's wicked grin ate up the bottom half of his face.

Oh no!

No!

NO!!!

"Raito-kun!" L waved his hands frantically in front of the monitor, "Please reconsider. Perhaps you should give yourself time to think since you've just had a traumatizing day. Yes. Think about it! Just _think_ before you answer, Raito-kun!"

L knew by the voracious look in Raito's eyes that he'd already done all the thinking he needed to.

Reluctantly and woefully, L resigned himself to the fate of the e-mail and oozed miserably into the floor. He wafted back up through the wood, though, needing to see just how this e-mail from hell would end.

_You're not too old. I once knew a couple who were seven years apart and they were the two happiest people I ever met._

Oh God. Raito was alluding to the 'I want to be with you for eeever and eeever and eeever…' cliché. It made L sick.

_As for going out…_

Oh God. L was going to get sick all over the back of Raito's shirt.

_I'd love to._

L's heart made a shriveling, choking, dying noise inside of his ribcage. Goodbye, cruel world! If the mini-death could have jumped out of the window and died right then, he would have. Raito was such a cold bastard!

_Talk to you soon,_

_-Raito_

L swooned and fell into the floor with an asphyxiated 'Graaaauugh..!' He knew that under any other circumstances, he would not be this emotional. However, the subway incident, the cameras, and now this e-mail were stretching the mini-death's nerves thin.

…He needed food.

He needed food _now_.

Raito sighed suddenly and put his computer into sleep mode. "Jeez, it's boring here. I guess I'll take a walk."

Looked like L wouldn't get his snack… Oh well. He probably wouldn't get to eat it anyway. Who knew? Maybe there were cameras all over the house. He couldn't eat any more food…

Ever…

Now L was very, very depressed.

----

Raito checked his coat for bugs once he was outside. Finding none, he decided to let Ryuzaki know just how irritating he found his mumbling and grumbling. "You're really _angry_, Ryuzaki, and it's rubbing off on me. Now stop."

Instead of shutting up, the mini-death cast a world-weary look at him with those droopy black eyes and said, "Angry? Oh, Raito-kun, you have not _seen_ angry."

"Depressed, then," Raito suggested with a roll of the eyes. "You know," he jeered, "depression is only anger without enthusiasm."

"Enthusiasm, Raito-kun?" Ryuzaki remarked, sounding winded, "Oh, I'm all out of enthusiasm. I used it to save your life, to find a few of your cameras…"

"Drop it!" Raito commanded loudly. God, Ryuzaki was such a girl! Raito was just dating Mikami out of strategy, that was all! He informed the brooding mini-death of this. "I'm just doing this so I can find out more about who he is and who he works for!"

"I know," Ryuzaki whined, "That's half of the problem. You use people, Raito-kun. It's immoral. _It's_ _a bad thing to do_."

Raito got the feeling that Ryuzaki didn't only mean Mikami. Was that what this was about? Ryuzaki felt used? He felt that way because Raito didn't return his feelings?

"Look," Raito growled, "I don't like you. You're a friend, that's all. That's _it_, Ryuzaki! Be happy I even consider you a friend!"

"I am," Ryuzaki replied sullenly, "I just wish I were more."

"Look, Ryuzaki," Raito hissed, "You've got bags under your eyes, you have no eyebrows, you sit in the most impolite of manners, you wear no socks, you have really long toes, your hair is a mess, your wardrobe is disgusting, and you're NOT. MY. TYPE. Understand?"

Every part of Ryuzaki slumped as if he were filled to the brim with misery. His eyes drooped and his gaze fell to the pavement, his toes flattened, his fingers un-curled, his head dipped forward, and his scraggly hair bent slowly toward the ground. He sighed, long and empty.

Raito blinked sullenly, eyes flitting across Ryuzaki's crestfallen form. Boy… he was really crushed, wasn't he?

Oh, no…

"Ryuzaki," Raito sighed heavily, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"No, Raito-kun," the mini-death interrupted, "I understand."

"Well…" Raito was about to say 'good!' He deemed, however, that neither himself nor Ryuzaki was in the mood for the comment. He left his breath hanging in the air.

Oh… shit. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Raito should not have said that. He should _not_ have said that. Out of all the things he could have said, he picked the worst one and vomited it up like a hairball.

Now he was in deep shit.

Really, really deep shit.

"Ryuzaki," he pleaded, spinning around on one heel. Alas, he was talking to the air.

Ryuzaki had vanished.

Around the regretful lump in his throat, Raito choked the word, "Fuck!" and kicked the pavement with the toe of his sneaker. Ryuzaki was gone! After what Raito said to him, he'd probably never come back!

Fuck!

And this time… Raito wasn't sure if his worry was because he was afraid of dying or not. He needed to settle things with Ryuzaki. Raito needed to let him know that he meant nothing he said! He was just… irritated!

He was just angry!

Raito did stupid shit when he was angry!

He kicked a pebble into the street before muttering profanity to himself and trudging down the sidewalk. Raito felt like an idiot. He couldn't move on. He just felt like a complete, ignorant, insensitive asshole.

…

He needed caffeine.

Raito remembered that, somewhere amidst all of the small shops he saw, there was a certain coffee shop full of nerds, bookworms, and soft chit-chat. It was just the atmosphere Raito needed. He turned right at the corner of the sidewalk and felt his way toward the café.

It was past noon, the wind was wet, and the rain was threatening to fall. The wan sunlight through the grey sky served only to make the scenery more dreary. Raito shoved his hands in his coat pockets. Why did it have to be so gloomy outside? Why was the weather in cahoots with his conscience? Why was he asking?

Raito noticed the modest little sign heralding his destination. He pushed the glass door open and walked into the shop on auto-pilot.

There were just as many people sitting at the small, circular tables as there had been last time. The noise in the room was at a dull roar as it had been last time. There were still some empty tables and seats just as there had been last time.

The familiarity was medicinal.

Raito searched for the spot he sat in before. It was the one closest to the wall on the right, nearest to the front. It was the first table Raito noticed when he first came to the coffee shop, and it was closest to the door so he could drop his studying aids as quickly as possible.

Raito dragged his feet over to the table's single upholstered chair, pulled it out from under the table, and flopped gracelessly into it. He folded his arms and set his elbows on the table, clasping his hands together and hooking them around the back of his head. He glanced tiredly at the roman-numeral clock on the wall.

It was three forty five in the afternoon.

To Raito, it felt like seven.

Feeling more tired than he had ever been, Raito unhooked his hands and crossed his arms across the table. He took one last baleful look at the clock and buried his face in his arms.

Today was not his day. He had a stalker, he had cameras in his room, and now this. Raito had agreed to go on a date with a man he barely knew and there Ryuzaki was, with him all hours of the day, keeping him out of trouble and threatening to kick Death in the face if it came near him…

And Raito just insulted everything about him.

God, now even Raito was depressed. The Great Kira, God of Death, Lord of the Living, needed a gallon of chocolate ice-cream, an overstuffed couch, and a romance film.

Through his morose musings, Raito could hear various people coming up to him, no less than two minutes apart, and asking him whether or not he was okay.

No. He was _not_ okay. He didn't understand why these people expected him to be any less than devastated. He also didn't understand why they expected him to spill his guts and tell them everything about his dysfunctional love life.

It wasn't going to happen.

Suddenly, Raito heard a familiar voice. "Raito-kun," it crooned hesitantly, "Are you feeling alright?"

He knew that voice. Raito lifted his head out of his arms and peered strangely at the first thing he saw. What he saw was a very tall man dressed completely in black, leaning sideways expectantly with a worried look on his face. It was Mikami's face.

Thoughtlessly, Raito said the first thing that came to his mind.

"God, you're everywhere."

Teru smiled disarmingly. "Well, you _are_ in my coffee shop."

"Your coffee shop?" Raito asked, pushing himself off of the table and swiping one sleeve across his face just in case he'd let a tear fall. Not surprisingly, Raito had not been crying.

Men didn't cry.

"Well, it's not exactly _my _coffee shop," Mikami admitted, settling his weight on the other foot, "but I come here every other day at about this time. They even named a cake after me." Out of the blue, he added, "Do you mind if I sit with you?"

Raito shook his head and messed with his hair.

"Good," Teru said with a smile, "because I would have done it anyway." He turned around briefly before locating an empty chair and dragging it to the other side of Raito's table. It was during his companion's brief absence that Raito noticed the amount of attention the two of them were getting.

Wow.

Raito didn't know he was that popular.

"So," Teru drawled, attracting Raito's attention, "You want to tell me what's wrong?"

Raito laughed lifelessly. "If I told you everything that went wrong today, we'd be sitting here for two weeks."

"That bad huh?" Teru whistled and crossed his arms over his chest. Raito nodded at him, blowing a puff of air at his bangs. To tell or not to tell? As much as he hated to admit it, Raito wanted to spit out all of the nasty things that happened that morning. Instead, he took a more ambiguous approach.

"I had a fight with my best friend," Raito sighed.

Teru blinked, as if the cause of Raito's melancholy was unexpected. Nevertheless, being the caring, comforting man he was supposed to be, Tall, Dark, and Geeky asked, "What about?"

If Raito said, 'loooove…' Mikami was going to look at him funny.

"Just… stuff," Raito sighed, "It's my fault, actually. I said some nasty shit about him straight to his face, so it's no wonder he's angry."

Raito rolled his internal eyes and asked himself why the hell he was telling Teru this. He could have been another police officer assigned to tail him. Teru, however, seemed like the farthest thing from a stalker. Why would the police agency send a guy to ask Raito out anyway?

The police agency…

Oh yes.

Raito just found his excuse for keeping to himself all day. He just found an excuse to feed to A and W's cameras. It was something that, were it sincere, Raito would definitely keep away from the prying eyes of his overprotective father.

It was too perfect.

It was Teru Mikami.

If Raito were Raito, studious and morally correct as he was, being gay would never be acceptable. He knew what his parents and his sister wanted. They were always waiting for him to come home with two things: good grades and a stone fox of a girlfriend.

Boy, Soichiro would have a heart attack over that one.

Day brightened somewhat, Raito gleefully absorbed the positive encouragement gushing out of Teru's mouth. Stuff about, 'I bet it's not your fault,' and 'you're too nice,' and blah, blah, blah.

Still… even with an upside, the hill of Raito's life had suddenly split and formed a huge, menacing ravine, complete with sharp, pointy rocks at the bottom. He had to fix things with Ryuzaki.

Fast.

"By the way," Teru announced suddenly with an undertone of excitement, "I got your e-mail."

Raito smirked. "So what, you're on the computer all day?"

Teru fluffed his proverbial feathers out like a perturbed waterfowl. "I am not!" he insisted, "I just check my e-mail regularly, that's all!"

Raito chuckled at Teru's defensiveness. Teru would never be a true 'boyfriend,' but he was actually making Raito feel better.

----

L was mindlessly floating around downtown when he noticed that a certain bakery was still open. Not particularly _caring_ whether or not it was open, as he would have robbed it either way, L floated into the wall and raided the fridge.

He needed cake.

Lots of cake.

He felt like he'd just been kicked, and while he was trying to get back up, he'd been shot twice, right in the heart. Raito's words stung him more than he'd ever know. More than he_ cared_, probably. When Raito tried to apologize, L took it as his fear-of-imminent-death talking.

And that was what it was.

Raito was afraid of dying.

That was all he needed L for.

L wondered if what Raito said was for the best. Now he knew, at least, that Raito was every bit as shallow as L suspected. He judged on appearances instead of character. L wondered with horror if this was his cue to let the mortal die so he could go back home and sleep everything off. It would make things much easier, wouldn't it?

He should have known from the beginning that relationships between two worlds only ended in blood and tears. If Near had taught him anything, it was that. Humans were selfish creatures, only capable of preserving their own happiness.

Granted, there were many things Mikami could do to Raito that L could not. Mikami could touch him. He could run his hands through Raito's hair, he could hold Raito close and comfort him, he could give Raito back rubs…

He could kiss him…

He could impassion him…

And here L was, an ugly mass of cold air, unable to do any of those things. _Especially_ the last few.

He could eat as much food as possible and shout his undying love for the mortal to the world and become human, but L would also be unable to protect him. Raito's life mattered more than L's feelings.

L stuffed himself full of two whole pieces of strawberry shortcake.

It wasn't meant to be.

Humans were only capable of loving other humans. Even Mello ended up loving another human. At least this is what L gathered from Near's many hissy-fits concerning the blonde he had his heart set on. He was always complaining that he could never find where Mello was going. He'd swept every block within a mile of Mello's L.A. safe house and found him nowhere. He followed his car and lost it in traffic. Near never did track Mello down.

That was what L figured, anyway. Near could have found out and been too devastated to accept it.

L could accept anything.

Even that the one person he truly loved would rather be with someone else.

…

L angrily threw a wedge of mousse cake at the back of the fridge. Who was he kidding? He couldn't accept it! It made him angry as hell! He wanted to find Mikami, beat him to death with a trash can, and lock Raito up in a closet so he could NEVER LEAVE!

EVER!

Having completely lost his appetite, L morphed out of the fridge and tore through the sitting area, not caring which people he flew through and which he avoided. He set out in search of the single mortal beyond his reach.

L wanted to be angry at Raito. He wanted to be furious! But as L stated before, the importance of his feelings was dwarfed by the importance of the preservation of Raito's life. Kira was harsh, difficult, and painful to deal with, but L had to watch over him. He _had_ to keep him safe. He couldn't let Ryuk or Sidoh get to him while he was away.

If L knew Raito as well as he thought, the mortal was probably heading for home about then.

----

Raito booked it for home. He didn't want to be out longer than was absolutely necessary. Besides, wouldn't it be convenient for Raito to slip out of the house the first day his room was being monitored by cameras? Considering all of the other convenient things that had been happening that day, Raito wouldn't be surprised if A and W arrested him right then and there.

At least he had an excuse now. Golden Boy Raito Yagami had a boyfriend. It was perfect cover.

Raito yelled into the house, wondering if anyone was home yet. His mother yelled back. Secure in the feeling that at least he wasn't by himself, Raito headed for his room. He casually opened the door, making a show of snatching his scrap of paper off of the floor and placing it in a nondescript spot on his desk.

As he flopped tiredly down on his bed, he became aware of a cold presence outside his balcony. Raito knew what it was, but hadn't expected it to return so soon.

He hadn't expected it to return _at all_.

Raito glanced sidelong out onto the balcony. Sure enough, there was Ryuzaki, perched gloomily on the corner of the railing, biting his thumb and looking off in no particular direction. Raito's previous optimistic high declined quickly and smoldered itself into oblivion.

He'd been such an asshole to Ryuzaki lately. He accused him, he pushed him away, he insulted him, and yet here he was. Despite everything Raito did to him, Ryuzaki still sat quietly outside the boundaries of his personal space and kept him safe.

For the first time in Raito's life, he was afraid of making Ryuzaki angry.

He sheepishly wondered if Ryuzaki had done any camera-searching while he was gone. He didn't want to ask, though. Not only would it be awkward to speak to the brooding mini-death at this time, but it would also make Raito seem like the insensitive pig Ryuzaki thought him to be. If Raito said anything at all, it would be another apology. Currently though, it was awkward to speak and there were cameras everywhere.

Raito said nothing.

…And in doing so, had gotten very depressed very quickly. He needed to focus on something. While he was focusing on this 'something,' he needed to make himself look busy and innocent.

Well… innocent of being Kira anyway.

Raito stretched and got off of his bed. If he could remember correctly, he had a few pornographic magazines hidden in his bookshelf. One of said magazines was chock full of men.

It wasn't _his_ magazine, of course. Come to think of it, he had no idea how it got there. The brunette could only figure that one of his past acquaintances had left it at his house. Why Raito had kept it was another mystery.

He pulled the remnants of a large box-set of books off of his shelf. Within the box, he had unassumingly placed several magazines. He found the one he was looking for, being the only black magazine with silver kanji, and set the rest back on the shelf.

As he walked back to his bed, Kira thought of two things. Firstly, he had no idea why he'd kept the magazine. His initial excuse had been that he wanted to return it to its owner. The owner, however, had moved away to Osaka a year ago.

Secondly, if he looked at said magazine in the presence of the melancholic psychopomp outside his glass door, would he seem like a pig? Hell yes, he would. It was a miracle Ryuzaki even came back in the first place. Raito definitely didn't want him to leave all in a huff again.

_Ever_ again.

He fell back into his blankets with a woeful sigh.

Raito absolutely hated feeling as penitent as he did. He _never_ felt that way. He never did anything to feel that way! It was new and Raito didn't know what to do about it.

He hated feeling embarrassed and regretful at the same time!

He hated not knowing what ignited the feeling! Sure, he'd insulted Ryuzaki beyond forgiveness, but ordinarily, Raito would be glad to have that monkey off his back. He didn't actually… _like _Ryuzaki, did he? Was that why he felt so guilty? After stating the many reasons why he'd never be attracted to the panda-eyed mini-death only a few hours ago, the suggestion seemed laughably ridiculous.

Perhaps it was because he didn't fully appreciate the things Ryuzaki did for him until he vanished. That must've been it. Raito took his divine protection for granted.

He rolled over on his stomach and flipped through his colorful magazine.

And that was when he felt a pair of dark, ringed eyes boring holes in his side.

Shit. Ryuzaki was looking. Raito could only make assumptions pertaining to the myriad of dialogue that was flying through his head. Most of said imaginary dialogue contained the words 'Raito, Kira, pervert, heartless, insensitive, bastard, mortal, evil,' and Raito's personal favorite, 'whore.'

He dared not look the brooding mini-death in the eye.

Another thing he hated about the present was that he was usually the aggressor. It was Raito who told Ryuzaki what to do. It was Raito who had the I'm-a-badass-so-don't-mess-with-me attitude.

Right now, he couldn't bring himself to feel larger than an ant.

The brunette originally planned to use the magazine as cover for devising ways to kill criminals without revealing himself, but any attempt on thinking was shot to hell. All Raito could think of was 'Ryuzaki hates me' or 'He's going to step aside and let me die.'

Hell…

…he could think of ways…

…tomorrow.

He had plenty of criminals dying throughout the day.

After he put his magazine away, Raito sat on his bed and pretended to read a book. His creeping, seeping depression commanded him to sit still and do absolutely nothing, but Raito thought it would be strange if he sat in his room all day and did nothing. He still didn't know how many cameras there were and he wasn't about to show any of them that he was the least bit suspicious.

As Raito flipped listlessly to page forty seven, he heard a pattering noise dancing across the roof. He set his book down and propped himself up on one elbow to peer onto the balcony. His eyes shifted from the black, angry sky, to the swaying trees on the other side of the street, to the dark dots forming on his balcony, to Ryuzaki. The mini-death was sitting in the very same spot in much the same way, ringed eyes distant, body scrunched together like an accordion, and toes curled dispassionately around the railing.

Raito's first thought was that he was going to get wet. It was a silly thought, considering that Ryuzaki was intangible to anything he didn't want to touch.

But…

Raito sighed and set his book on his pillow. Silly though the action was, Raito wanted some way of getting through to the impervious mini-death sitting out in the rain. He didn't care what the men behind the cameras thought about it. He didn't care if his floor got wet. He didn't care that Ryuzaki could have morphed through the door if he so desired.

He walked over to the door and did something that Ryuzaki had been wanting him to do for a very long time.

Raito released the latch on the door, pushed it to the side, and left it wide open.

----

Not entirely sure of his sanity when he returned to Raito's house, L had perched on the balcony and waited. He reasoned with himself at first that he needed to protect Raito from shinigami, but the idea started to whither as time went on. L would be much better off if he let Raito die. After all, death was merely the transition between this life and the next.

But when he let Near die, L had lost him forever.

He had a feeling that the snow-haired mini-death ascended to heaven, but he knew not which one. Being a psychopomp, he knew all about the deaths of humans, but the deaths of his own kind were much more mysterious. None of his acquaintances had ever been to the Other Side. None of them knew if there was an Other Side.

To top this off, he never heard reports of Mello either. Being a human, he would have gone to heaven or hell. Every psychopomp knew Mello, and yet L heard no stories about him. Perhaps the afterlife was different for Kira as well.

When Raito entered the room, heralded by the soft slam of his door, L sat rigidly on the banister of his balcony and half turned his back. L dared to look when Raito was lying on his bed. He'd hoped to catch Raito staring back at him, but he was staring at something else completely.

L had become unspeakably angry. He sulked on his corner of the balcony, seething and boiling internally.

Yet…

There was a certain way humans looked at pictures they liked. There was a certain gleam in their eyes and a certain pink tint to their cheeks. There was a particular way they breathed, a particular way they shuffled about.

Raito showed none of this particular behavior.

He didn't even appear to enjoy what he was looking at. When he turned the pages, his fingers were clumsy and heavy with guilt. His eyebrows were turned down and his eyes were half-closed as if his thoughts and his visions hadn't even crossed each others' paths.

He put the magazine back on his shelf sometime after that and replaced it with a book. Personally, L had read it from cover to cover more times than Raito could possibly imagine and he knew it to be one of the most boring books ever written.

But Raito wasn't reading it.

His eyes flitted across the pages from time to time, but he wasn't absorbing a single word he read.

Raito simply wasn't there.

L began to wonder if it was his imagination, but Raito looked positively pathetic. Miserable even. The light in his eyes had faded out and the confidence in his step had been replaced by a low, careful slump that was almost submissive.

L was certain that his wishful thinking was making all of these things appear, but all of Raito's actions suggested that he was really, deeply, truly sorry. That he _hadn't _meant anything he said.

The mini-death was convinced that he was imagining things.

Until it started to rain.

L had been sitting in his spot, debating whether or not he was feeling down enough to let the rain hit him, when he heard the telltale swooshing noise of a sliding door being pushed aside. He let an hour slip past, lest Raito be waiting for him to look. L's ears picked up Raito's mother's voice calling him down for dinner. He let Raito hesitantly leave the room before slowly turning his head.

If L ever had any doubts of Raito's sincerity, that was the moment they all began to whither away.

Raito left the door open for him.

It was a simple act, but given the impracticality of it due to the rain, L could only assume that Raito had left it open as a plea to resolve the conflict. L's mind hadn't been deceiving him. The brunette mortal was actually feeling regretful.

He was sorry.

The rain was getting much fiercer now and an icy gale was beginning to blow papers off of Raito's desk.

In the midst of all this, the mini-death thought up an Oscar-winning plan. L would test Raito's resolve. If he really was sorry enough, he'd weather the storm and leave the door open until the mini-death so decided that he wanted to walk inside.

Quicker than usual, Raito's door opened and in walked the mortal himself. L kept a close watch over his peripheral vision as Raito glanced expectantly at the balcony. Everything about him drooped an inch or so before he sighed and gave up. He wandered listlessly over to his bed, picked his book up, and not-read it.

Wind howled through the room and blew a few papers and pens off of Raito's desk. The wooden floor just inside of his doorway shimmered with raindrops.

The door was still open.

An hour in and the storm was getting worse. Thunder rolled and a single microburst came down, pushing a tree over the power line and blacking four blocks out. Every light in the neighborhood suddenly went black and numerous surprised screams erupted simultaneously through the street. Raito's house was not spared. The pitter-patter of Sayu's feet could be heard through the open window below Raito's balcony. She screamed with excitement and every once in a while, the beam of her flashlight shown out the windows and into the rain.

The cameras were probably still running on batteries, but L doubted their ability to see anything.

Raito had been forced to stop reading his book. He tossed it aside and shuffled off of his bed. L wondered whether or not he was going to close the balcony door. Instead of heading outside, though, Raito headed in the opposite direction. Being inhuman and having all of the extraordinary powers of an inhuman, L was able to see Raito, even in the dark. The brunette blindly felt his way along the wall until he hit the door. He fumbled for the doorknob and jerked the door open, disappearing once he headed out of it.

L strained his ears to hear Raito yelling down the stairs for his dad to get him a flashlight. Luminescence flickered beneath the door before disappearing with a muffled 'Thanks, dad.' Raito was gone for a grand total of one minute and twelve seconds.

L knew.

L counted.

Ordinarily, L would have been fretting over Raito walking around in the dark. He could trip on anything and break his neck. However, not only had L not seen any shinigami lately, but he also had an image to keep up.

Lightning flashed across the sky and for a brief moment, the windows two blocks down were the brightest things in Japan. The next thing L knew, and it was very quickly after the first thing, almost simultaneous, in fact, was that it had become extremely loud.

After this, with his hands to his ears, Raito stumbled back into the room. Through the corner of L's eye, he could see that the Yagami boy had something in one of his hands. He stepped unassumingly over to the doorway and dropped whatever he had in his hands onto the floor. After that, Raito turned his back and retreated.

L furtively examined the thing on the floor.

It was a white, terrycloth towel to soak the rainwater up with.

The psychopomp smirked. So Raito had every intention of leaving the door open as long as it took.

L was touched.

Another microburst swept through and shoved a wall of rain and dirt through the street. The mini-death wondered vaguely if he was in the middle of a typhoon. He began to worry about the state of Raito's desk.

Ten o clock came slowly. This time of night found Raito with no television to watch, no L to talk to, no internet to surf, and no people to kill, but plenty of cameras to worry about. In short, when L glanced back into the room, ten o clock found Raito curled up with his back to the weather, tucked quietly into his quilts.

Odd. Raito never slept before twelve. Given the cameras and the electric state of emergency, though, the mortal had nothing better to do. L heard also that humans had an overwhelming desire to sleep when they were severely unhappy.

Raito had given up hope and fallen asleep.

The storm rolled on and the rain kept falling. If L wasn't mistaken, the air was only getting colder.

He glanced at the open door. Raito was asleep, so walking into the room and ending his pain was definitely an option. The case would be settled. His unspoken challenge had been that Raito leave his door open all night, and unless the brunette sleep-walked to close it, it wasn't going to close itself.

Raito had won, and L was all too happy to lose for him.

It appeared that he really was as sorry as L hoped. Cheerful in that notion, L padded over to the open door and walked in. The towel on the floor was soaking wet, water droplets were scattered everywhere, and the room was ice cold.

No wonder why Raito went to sleep so fast.

His bed was warm.

Speaking of Raito's bed, L had been left with yet another endearing surprise. Raito knew very well that L didn't sleep, and yet he wasn't sleeping in the center of the bed as he usually did. Raito had moved slightly to the side, leaving just enough room that, if L wanted, he could sprawl out on Raito's bed and fall asleep.

L knew what Raito would say about it later.

"_I was just making room for you to sit if you wanted to! I wasn't asking you to sleep with me!"_

Against his will, the corners of L's lips stretched out in a smile.

Raito had apologized to him, left the door open, and was now grudgingly inviting L to share a bed with him. All because he said a few things he shouldn't have.

It was cute.

_Cute._

L didn't think _anything _was cute. Yet, Raito, for all his Kira huff-and-puff, was the cutest thing L had ever seen.

----

Me: -checklist- Strategy, Action, Angst, Fluff, Convenient Weather… looks like we got it all, guys.

Chibi Raito: Yeah, fine! It was a bitch having to shop for it all! No thanks for sending Ryuzaki with me, by the way. Every time he sees Romance or Fluff, he just _has_ to buy it.

Chibi Misa: -mimics- 'Just one, Raito-kun, just one!'

Chibi Raito: Just like that! And I say 'Fine! Just one!' and he buys the whole friggin' store!

Me: Well, I suppose L is a sucker for sweets…

Chibi Raito: I am NEVER going shopping with him again!

Chibi L: What's goin' on, guys:3

Chibi Raito: Nothing…

Me: Mm hmm… right. Anyway! Speaking of sweets, one more month and I'll be Sweet Smixteen!

Chibi L: -pets Fluff- Sweet? Can I eat it?

Chibi Misa: Yay!

Me: Cookies and cake for you guys! The reviewers I mean. I know I've been extra slow with this chapter, but you know me. My middle name is 'I'll do it Tomorrow.' Hope this chapter's everything you ever wanted! Well… almost.

Chibi L: Lemons? With extra sugar:x

Chibi Raito: Oh, no you don't.

Me: Aww… you guys have to like each other first. –plot, scheme, plot, scheme- And L has to turn into a human.

Chibi Raito: EEEeeek! No way! You wouldn't!

Me: I would. Sometime. Right now, I have to load this thing with more action-fluff. And I have a plot I have to build… -lightning strike- Muuuahahaha!

Chibi Misa: Aaah! Creepy Swirl-chan! I'll end the fic right now! For the love of God, review, review, review!


	10. Death's Triangle

**DS**

**Disclaimer:** What disclaimer? How? Who are you? Where am I???

Chibi Raito: Lovely acting.

Me: Oh, I know.

Chibi Misa: Umm… Raito-kun? I have a question.

Chibi Raito: What else is new?

Chibi Misa: Aren't you a bit out of character?

Me: Nonsense! He's perfectly fine. He's '"I'm so Cute and Cuddly" Teenage Raito Who's Still Working out the Mysteries of the Universe,' not '"I'm so Badass Because I Know Everything" Adult Raito who Loves To Kill Shit for the Fun of It.'

Chibi Raito: I'm not cute and cuddly!

Chibi L: I bet you would squeak if I hugged you.

Chibi Raito: Stay away. Besides, you can't even hug me yet.

Chibi L: Damn.

Chibi Misa: -shifty eyes-

Chibi Raito: Oh, no you don't.

Chibi Misa: … -experimental hug-

Chibi Raito: -squeaks-

Chibi L: HAH!

Chibi Raito: -swears profusely to reinforce his manliness before moping in the corner-

Me: Err… right. Chapter ten, girls (and boys? 8D)!

Chibi Misa: Read, review, and relax!

**D S 10**

"I was just making room for you to sit if you wanted to! I wasn't asking you to sleep with me!"

L rolled his eyes skyward and blew a resentful puff of air at his bangs. How did he know this was going to happen? How did he know the first words Raito would say once he got out of the house?

Because he knew Raito too well. That was why.

Though, L got the idea that Raito's words were coming from his ego, not his heart. That was a comforting notion in itself. With that thought, L calmly resigned himself to listen to Raito's ramblings about how much he did _not _love him.

"I can't believe you were actually lying there either! You never sleep. You were just doing that to make fun of me, weren't you?" mumble, grumble, grouse.

It was true. L had made himself comfortable on the bed, careful to melt through the sheets so as not to leave an imprint for the cameras to focus on. He wanted to fall asleep, as foreign as that sounded, but at the same time, sleep was foreboding territory. Anything could happen to Raito while L was asleep.

Yet, shinigami hadn't been making themselves appear lately. Raito's life was strangely devoid of Ryuk. It was an entirely welcome empty space, but one that made L suspicious. Were the shinigami regrouping? Were they planning something? At first glance, Ryuk didn't seem capable of thinking, much less planning.

However, if what he said about Mello's not-so-accidental death was to be believed, there were other shinigami with more sinister minds than his own.

Hmm…

L found it strange that, amidst all of this thinking, Raito had stopped talking. He expected the flustered mortal to at least continue grumbling to himself. Yet, Raito was incredibly quiet, almost to the point that he could be considered brooding.

Apart from L's apparently uninvited stay in Raito's bed, he had nothing to brood about. He'd been practically _begged_ to attend each college he'd applied to. Raito, however, had his heart set on To-Oh University. L didn't know why he applied for all the other colleges. It was a given that he'd get admitted to any one he wanted.

To-Oh would be informed that they'd received Raito Yagami.

And he'd have to make a speech. L wasn't worried about that. When Raito pleased, he had a way with words.

Currently, however, he was on his way to Halle's office. His visits had been increased lately, a decision made by his father.

Now Raito had a very busy schedule, as he'd loudly informed no one in particular that morning. Or perhaps Raito was directly letting him know, seeing as how L was his 'imaginary friend' and all. He supposed it was a play for the cameras to watch.

Oh, L was going to have such fun with those cameras once Raito thawed out.

Speaking, in a sort, of being watched, L was beginning to notice an odd presence lingering just beyond the range of his vision.

That stalker.

He informed Raito about it. "You're being followed."

Raito loudly announced that yes, he knew that the entire time. This took L by surprise and he blinked the shock off. Under normal circumstances, Raito would simply incline his head nonchalantly and keep walking. The sudden outburst was odd.

Once again, L had to assume that Raito was running his own show. It was only natural for a schizophrenic to talk to himself when he thought no one else was around. It was a good plan. He decided not to correct Raito's actions.

The slightly rigid manner in which Raito walked, feet flexed, elbows locked and all, suggested to L that the brunette wasn't feeling his best about being stalked. The mini-death chewed thoughtfully on his thumb. He'd been the one to initiate such fear in Raito, after all. He probably shouldn't have mentioned anything about collaborative shinigami the other day.

Then Raito wouldn't be so uptight.

L sighed and scratched his scalp. The damage was done, and there was no undoing it. The most he could do would be to keep an eye on Raito at all times.

Raito took the bus this time in favor of a less-enclosed environment.

Two blocks later, his stalker crept onto the very same bus.

Raito had nothing to worry about, though. If the subway fiasco was helped along by shinigami, Raito couldn't die of whatever they'd been planning. Or so L assumed…

Bored of thinking to himself, L thought to Raito. "I don't suppose he could kill you by whatever means he may have tried last time, but there are many ways to kill someone in a bus…"

"Thank you, Ryuzaki," Raito sarcastically mumbled more to the bus than to himself.

Ah… so Raito _did _want the man to hear him. So L had been right all along.

"You want him to hear you?" L clarified with an intrigued thumb in his teeth.

Raito's eyes narrowed and widened unevenly, then he ambiguously replied, "Wouldn't it be rather _odd_ otherwise?"

Yes. Yes it would be. Raito's schizophrenia entitled him to speak to his fictional companion all hours of the day. To an outsider, it would seem strange to see a grown man talking to himself in public. It would be far stranger, however, if he did not. Raito's best course of action, as L was sure Raito knew, was to be quieter in crowds with the express purpose of seeming secretive, but to talk all the time anyway.

Nothing noteworthy took place on the bus ride to Raito's appointment. The stalker, still wearing his glossy sunglasses and starchy overcoat, merely sat in the corner and observed. When Raito arrived, he yawned and stepped off the bus as if nothing was bothering him.

L noted the odd look the stalker was giving him.

"I think he noticed you talking to yourself," L pointed out with a finger in the air. Raito merely smiled, closed his eyes, and mumbled, "Good."

L followed him quietly into Halle's psychiatric center. The stalker did not. The mini-death found this fact not only to be odd, but also evidence that he and Halle were in this together. The stalker and the psychiatrist were a team. Perhaps this was the 'Gevanni' she'd been talking with on the phone.

Interesting…

Having walked through the building a short way, Raito turned sharply and knocked on the frosted door which paid homage to the Great Succubus, HALLE LIDNER. Though the mortal dealt with her on a daily basis and showed not a smidgeon of desire, L still worried that one day, he might change his mind.

A singsong, "Come in," was heard through the glass. L slunk into Halle's lair as if it were that of a dragon. Raito merely waltzed in, obviously content with himself, and fell leisurely onto the sofa.

Halle chose then to rise out of her chair in all of her glittering, foully effeminate glory. She beamed at Raito, a look L knew to be practiced and jaded, and greeted him with a friendly, "And how are we today?"

L humored his nonsensical side and replied that he was tired. Raito cast him an odd, tilt-of-the-head look and said, "I'm fine. Ryuzaki's tired."

"Mmhmm…" Halle mumbled as if she were checking something off of her subconscious checklist. "How have relations been between you two?"

L recognized this as an opportunity to patch up the fact that neither of them had talked last night. Doubtless, the blonde's cameras would find it strange for him to remain silent while he was alone.

Raito noticed this as well. He cast a knowing look at his invisible friend before mentioning, "We got into a fight yesterday. He stayed outside the entire night."

Ah, so Raito was hinting at his strange behavior concerning the door… No doubt the cameras were scrutinizing that detail as well. If the cameras had a dilemma concerning his behavior, a simple, offhanded remark such as that could render it useless.

"I see…" Halle mused, "Has it been resolved?"

"For the most part," Raito sighed, "We still have a few _issues_ to address before that happens."

The blonde hummed thoughtfully to herself. "Are these 'issues' of yours going to be described in greater detail?"

"I'd rather not," Raito declined disdainfully. "I'll handle them myself."

"Alright then," Halle drawled, lazing back in her seat in an effort to look as casual as possible. She examined her nails and asked, "I'll just make small talk then. Perhaps we'll hit an important subject along the way. How was your day yesterday?"

----

"_How was your day yesterday?"_

Like Raito wanted to tell her. What a polite way to rephrase, 'What happened yesterday that started your fight with Ryuzaki?' As much as Kira hated his personal life to be spied upon, telling lies wasn't an option. Halle knew very well what went on yesterday. Raito had no doubt that she had spies all over or was a spy herself. She was testing him for truth.

Raito mentally rolled his eyes and sighed. He'd best tell the story with the voice of a secretive teenager. The section of his tale which included, 'I got a boyfriend!' wasn't exactly a snippet to be boastful of.

"You have to keep secrets, don't you?" Raito crossed his arms and growled in a huff of feigned indignation. Halle nodded affirmatively. Letting his arms drop to his sides, spine slide into the cushions of the sofa, and eyes drift to the side reluctantly, Raito began his Oscar-winning 'I'm just a normal, sexually confused teenage boy' act.

"Well… I've been seeing this… guy around lately. We've met a couple of times. He's a little older than I am-"

Ryuzaki scoffed over his shoulder as if he were dating a dinosaur-

"-but he and I have a lot in common," Raito continued his prepared speech in selective ignorance of the mini-death's disapproval.

Halle's bright eyes narrowed impishly and her face lit up as if she knew where Raito was headed.

"Yesterday he e-mailed me. And now…" here Raito broke for an embarrassed sigh. "You can't tell my dad about this."

"My lips are sealed," Halle reassured with a glossy fingernail to her lower lip.

Raito made a show of tapping his fingertips against the arm of the sofa. "No matter what I tell you?"

"I promise I won't tell your father anything you don't want me to tell him. You even have it on paper. Signed. Happy now?" Halle egged.

Raito stewed in his role of reluctance for a few more seconds. Finally, he grudgingly admitted, "Now we're… together."

Halle grinned smugly as if she knew the whole time. Raito, feeling more vulnerable than he'd envisioned, half expected her to crack a joke about his uncharacteristic dislike of her when they'd first met.

It was… weird. Raito never expected to feel this edgy after he said it. Because he wasn't gay! He really wasn't! He couldn't be! It wasn't possible! Raito wasn't gay. He wasn't a pansy, a poofda, or a fairy. None.

He was Kira, goddammit!

But… he hated Halle, who was only as physically attractive as women got, he dated only for popularity purposes, he was dating a guy, and…

Nope.

Bottom line: he was _by no means _introducing Ryuzaki into this.

No.

He didn't like Ryuzaki. After listing off all the reasons he _couldn't _like him, there was no way in whatever universe that Raito could… _love…_ Ryuzaki. No. He wasn't even human!

Wondering why the hell he'd thought so extensively about his sexuality, Raito smashed his train of thought and sulked in his seat.

He glared analytically at Halle, who was off in her own world, it seemed. Raito knew that look on her face. Eyes rolled up slightly, chin resting on the backs of her hands, hunched over, half-smirk twisting her glossy, pink lips…

She was thinking too much.

_Far_ too much.

"Did your fight with Ryuzaki start anytime after this?" she inquired all-too-knowingly.

Oh, that filthy little bitch.

"Yes," Raito stated in a tone of voice that would have hinted to anyone else that he was through with the subject. Halle noted his tone of voice, but cast it aside and dug deeper. "Raito-kun, if I may say so…"

_No, you may NOT!_

"I believe I may have found your reasons for creating this 'Ryuzaki' of yours…" she inferred, tapping a fingernail against her chin.

Raito knew what was coming and he didn't like it at all. He, himself, had been bringing it up and doubting it all morning. The reason he invited Ryuzaki to sit beside him stemmed only from the desire of order and peace. Not the desire of _anything else._

Despite Raito's burning urge to leap out of his seat and yell "No!" at the top of his lungs,he remained quiet and passive. The only sign of the anguish boiling inside of his head would be the glowing, infernal glare he was casting Halle's way.

Seeing she would get neither rejection nor acceptance of her silent plea to continue, Halle did so anyway. "Tell me about your love life, Raito-kun."

"And why would you want to know about that?" Raito growled, gritting his teeth the entire time.

Halle sighed. "I've confirmed that Ryuzaki wasn't meant to be your friend. Your frequent arguments prove that much. Nor is he someone to denounce your ideas, strangely enough. He doesn't argue _enough_ for that to happen. He is neither your friend nor your enemy. But I think…"

Oh God, here we go.

"…that your mind created him purely out of romantic frustration."

The temptation was too hard to resist. Raito lolled his head back into the couch cushion, dug his fingernails into his eyelids, and yelled "That's not it!"

And, judging by the knowing laugh coming from Halle's direction, she very much believed that yes, that was it.

It wasn't!

Really!

God, Raito was even arguing with himself like he _had _made Ryuzaki up. Hah! He was going insane… Absolutely insane…

Because he _knew_ he wasn't making this shit up. He'd proven it. Ryuzaki ate real food! Ryuzaki felt like ice! Regardless of the many symptoms of schizophrenia he was experiencing, Raito had proof that the mini-death was real.

Now Raito was second-guessing himself. He _was_ going insane, wasn't he?

"Are you alright?" the accursed mini-catastrophe asked, popping out of no place in particular and blinking at Raito with those huge panda-eyes.

"I used to date _tons _of women in high school!" Raito growled, rowing the air with his arms and ignoring Ryuzaki completely.

"But you don't anymore?" Halle inquired nosily.

"Well, no, but-" Raito heaved himself upright and hissed, "That's not the point."

"It _is _the point," insisted Halle. "Did you date all those girls because you loved them?"

"I liked a few," Raito defended menacingly.

Halle sighed in amusement. "But you never fell in love with a single one, did you?"

"No," Raito stated.

"So you made yourself an imaginary boyfriend," Halle inferred dangerously.

"Are you mocking me?" Raito roared, fists shaking at his sides.

"No," Halle denied simply. Raito thought she'd add more, but alas, she reclined in her seat and made no attempt to further the matter. Forced into a corner, Raito sulked and wondered at his next move. As much as he loved having the last laugh, furthering an argument like this one would only demean his image. It would make him seem desperate.

Offhandedly, he glared at Ryuzaki. The mini-death appeared to take no interest, let alone offense to the conversation. Why would he take offense? If Raito 'made him up' with the express purpose of having someone to love, Ryuzaki would be thrilled.

"I don't know why I made him up," Raito eventually deadpanned, hoping that Halle would take her assumption back. Raito wanted to forget about it as soon as possible.

"Most people don't understand why they make things up," Halle offered solemnly, "Most people believe their thoughts are meaningless. Do you believe your thoughts are meaningless, Raito-kun, because you don't know what some of them mean?"

"No," Raito denied after a moment of thought. True, he didn't think much about why Ryuzaki was there. Ryuzaki wasn't his making, though, so any thinking at all on the subject was useless. The mini-death existed simply because a higher power, higher than Kira, wanted him to.

"What transpired in that fight of yours?" Halle inquired suddenly.

Raito shot her an analytical glare. "Insults," he stated, eyeing her up and down with suspicion.

"Thank you for the detail," she replied in a wry manner.

Raito growled and hung his head with frustration. Would this woman never quit? He didn't understand why she needed to know the exact details. Irritated in this absence of knowledge, Raito bit, "Why do you have to know?"

Halle sighed and swept a wisp of blonde hair behind her ear. "Everything has a reason. I think that Ryuzaki has some hidden meaning to you. Perhaps if I were to know about this fight, I could confirm or deny my opinion."

"We argued, he walked off," Raito hissed irately. "Are you satisfied?"

"Did this happen as a direct result of you dating someone?" Halle fished.

The brunette scratched at the leather of the couch. Of course he had to tell the truth. "Yes."

Halle snorted softly as if her suspicions had just been proven. She closed her eyes thoughtfully and pulled at the corner of her lips. "I must say, this isn't what I expected."

Raito eyed her warily. "You were expecting something?"

"Ryuzaki fits into no single profile. He isn't your friend, he isn't your enemy, and he loves you, but you don't love him."

Raito raised his eyebrows and wondered how she could've come up with that last part.

"He doesn't seem malicious and, judging by what you've told me, he doesn't tell you what to do." Raito saw a look blink through Halle's eyes that he'd never seen before: Confusion. She continued with her nail to her lips. "From what I gather, you aren't paranoid like a schizophrenic. You aren't depressed like a schizophrenic. There is no history of schizophrenia or any other mental abnormality in your family. Despite the height of the fever your father says caused this, you suffer no other apparent mental damage."

Ookaaayyyy… she was talking more to herself now.

"I don't believe it!" She muttered, "Nothing fits!"

Nothing fit into what? Raito was more than aware of the tension that had quite suddenly wafted into the room. Ryuzaki was too. He was perched on the top of the couch, toes curled around the leather, eyes scanning left and right. So the mini-death was apprehensive about an 'unfortunate incident' occurring, was he? Seemed like it. Though Raito doubted that shinigami would take advantage of a psychiatrist to accomplish their goals.

As hard as he thought, Raito couldn't visualize a rampaging, psychotic, angry Halle Lidner. Naughty, perhaps. Eyes gleaming, body glistening with sweat, breasts peeking out of her suit…

Dammit.

Nothing.

Maybe Raito _was _gay after all.

Suddenly, she looked him straight in the eye and asked, "You _are_ the Raito Yagami who survived Kira's attack, are you not?"

"Uh, yeah," Raito admitted, having nothing else to say.

Halle looked away, having the most frustrated of gleams in her eye. "Perhaps…" she sighed after a long, irritated pause, "This is a direct result of surviving. I don't understand how. Then again, nothing involving Kira makes sense."

Now Raito was almost certain she worked with A and W. Why else would she be babbling about Kira?

"Yesterday, when we left, she spoke with a man called Gevanni on the phone," Ryuzaki suddenly announced from his perch on the couch. "She kept mentioning things about their 'group.' Judging from her sighs and such, I could tell that 'Gevanni' was trying to reassure her. I don't think she was a member of A and W's crew from the beginning. Rather, I think her 'Gevanni' offered her a job interrogating you."

Raito glanced questioningly at the Root of All Evil on the sofa. What was he getting at? Was he suggesting… that she was intentionally blowing her cover? Halle didn't trust Gevanni, possibly a lifelong friend, as much as she trusted her potentially psychotic patient? It didn't add up.

There were many factors that didn't add up. It would take her at least a few more days until she reached an agreement with herself to trust Raito. Adding to that, there was probably surveillance in this room if Halle was affiliated with A and W. Working with them, she'd be well aware of the surveillance. She'd never disclose her frustration beneath the scrutiny of her superiors.

But… if what Ryuzaki said was to be believed, she was having her doubts. Perhaps the two of them, Lidner and Gevanni, had decided on a strategy, utilizing her distrust, in order for Raito to reveal himself somehow. Hmm… Interesting.

She was trying to lure him into the bog with her crocodile tears.

She was a smart woman.

But not smarter than Kira.

----

L didn't know what to make of Halle.

The meeting had ended with a simple "Don't tell anyone I said this." And that was that. No further discussion was made. Raito simply asked her if he should be worried. She simply answered that he shouldn't worry: Halle would do the worrying. And then they'd parted with a simple promise of silence.

Wrong.

Nothing ended simply.

L didn't like it.

It was clear by the crystalline look of stormy thoughtfulness on Kira's face that he didn't appreciate the situation either. He was troubled, thinking and figuring silently.

Time passed, L realized, and Raito was getting quicker on his feet. He was getting smarter. He was learning from what few mistakes he made. He trusted no one and nothing. He was considering his problems in a dimension L hadn't seen him consider before.

It almost made L sad to think that Raito wouldn't be needing his help much.

Regardless of this sudden crestfallen wave, L couldn't help noticing that Raito was headed in the wrong direction. L informed him of this immediately.

"Home is that way," the mini-death mentioned, one hand attached to his lips and the other pointed at the horizon.

"I know," Raito replied, singsong.

L wondered.

"Why are we not headed that way?" he asked.

"Simple," Raito stated, as if unphased by the massive importance of the events that had only just transpired, "I have a date."

L melted into the sidewalk. "You're not joking, I take it?" he grumbled miserably.

"No."

And for all Raito's submissiveness yesterday, L had been under the impression that he cared. What a bastard. "You don't really love him, do you?" the moping mini-death lamented.

It took Raito longer than usual to reply. When he did, "No." was what he said.

L was half overjoyed and half infuriated. "Why do mortals date people they don't love? You most of all," he grumbled, regarding the conversation Raito and Halle had about the brunette's love life.

Raito glared at him. "Are you still sore about that?"

"Shouldn't I be?" L groused, folding his arms to his chest and hunching over selfishly.

Raito made a breathy 'Guh' noise with his tongue on the roof of his mouth before shaking his head. L accepted that to be the extent of his answer. He was mildly surprised when the brunette turned his head and furrowed his eyebrows. "Do you honestly love me that much?"

"Yes," L muttered, figuring any attempt at friendly denial would be futile.

Raito sighed and dug his hands into his coat pockets. The mini-death dared a peek at the mortal's eyes. He could tell by their dimension and shadow that Raito was deeply thinking about something.

Could it be..?

No.

L couldn't afford to get his hopes up. Raito was and forever would be a cold, heartless, manipulative human being.

To avoid the grips of depression, L set his mind to something else. That stalker was following them again. The mini-death couldn't understand how a human could sit still for hours while his target vanished into a psychiatric center. Then again, he was being paid for it.

"He's following you again," L mentioned. Raito cast him a look over his shoulder before peeking furtively further behind. By the slight narrowing of those impassive amber eyes, L could tell Raito had identified his stalker.

He turned back around and muttered something about how much of a hindrance his sudden pursuit was causing. L perked up at the opportunity to make Raito happier. "Should I get his name for you?"

Raito's eyes widened for a second and he cast the mini-death a stupefied glare. L grinned around the thumbnail between his teeth and announced, "I'll find a way to get it for you if you wish. He has to have an ID on him somewhere if he's from the NPA."

Then again, he probably wasn't from the NPA. He didn't look the least bit Japanese, save for the dark hair. He was taller and more angular. More European. All the more reason for him to have an ID, L's optimistic side insisted. If he was a foreigner investigating in Japan, he'd have to have proof that he was allowed to do so.

"I don't know," Raito growled apprehensively.

L blinked. "Why not?"

"Chances are, he's not the only investigator," Raito reasoned under his breath.

True, true. If A and W were behind this, they'd have their pool of suspects. If Raito killed only the one who was investigating him, things could get ugly.

"I could get his name for you anyway," L remarked, still wanting to be helpful. Raito leered at him in a way that suggested he knew exactly _why_ L wanted to be helpful. In the interest of pushing Raito's indecision, the mini-death added, "This way, if you ever want him to do something for you, say…" he thought a moment, "Give away information, perhaps?"

Raito's eyes sparkled for a split second, letting L know that he was interested.

L gladly continued ranting about the possibilities, regardless of whether Raito had considered them already or not. "With his name and a closer look at his face, you could force him to secretively slip names and pictures of all his coworkers to you. If he doesn't know their names already, you could force him to ask his Commander-in-Chief to send information to him concerning these unknown people. Before he died, you could collect it, kill everyone, and be on your way. It's a simple strategy, really."

Raito walked more slowly than usual, eyes to the sidewalk. Was he actually considering L's help? Wonderful!

"It… _is _a good strategy," The brunette muttered, "but I think I'll wait until later. I need to make myself inconspicuous. If he dies just as he starts investigating me, the NPA will be hot on my tail in no time."

Hmm… true. "For future reference, then," L insisted, tapping his fingers together.

Raito then asked the mini-death his second Obvious Question Du Jour. "Do you really want to help me that badly?"

"Yes," answered L.

Raito rolled his eyes and huffed.

Well, this was odd, for lack of a more fitting phrase. Normally, the Great Kira would jump at the chance to get a leg up on his opponents, regardless of timing. Currently, however, he seemed reluctant to accept L's help. The mini-death understood Raito's need to be independent, but this was ridiculous.

The mortal took note of L's blank, pointed glare.

He sighed, "Fine," and then he came up with another excuse to refuse L's help.

That bastard.

"Even if I _do_ have his name right now, I can't do much with it. I don't have a face to remember him by."

L blinked long and slow. "For being Kira," he deadpanned, "you aren't full of enthusiasm right now."

If the brunette was utterly crushed at the sound of L's comments, he didn't show it. Ah, well, the mini-death knew better.

Raito was flailing in his mind.

L rolled his eyes. "Sit down on that bench, Raito-kun" he demanded. Raito shot him a dangerous look and asked, "Why?"

L cast a furtive glance at his surroundings. He and Raito had walked, along with their persistent stalker, into a sort of green area. A not-park. There was grass, there were benches, and by one of the benches, there was a grove of trees and bushes.

"If you were to sit on that bench and rest a moment," L hinted, "Your phone could easily slip out of your pocket."

Raito cast him a one eye open, one eye squinting glare of incomprehension. L chewed thoughtfully on his thumb. "Your phone does have a camera, yes?"

Raito nodded.

"Good!" L chirped gleefully and clapped his hands together, "If your phone falls out of your pocket, I can grab it and hide in those bushes over there. When he walks by, I can get a good shot of his face."

Much to the mini-death's displeasure, Raito scoffed at the idea. "The screen on the front will glow. He'll see it! Even if he doesn't see the screen, my phone makes an annoying imitation of a camera click. He'll hear that for sure.

"I'll cover the screen with mud then!" L groused, "And I'll turn the volume down too."

"You could get mud in the camera lens and then your picture will be ruined," the mortal argued, "Plus, even if you did manage to take a picture, how would you get the camera back to me without being noticed?"

Damn! Raito had a point…

Well… L would think of something! He had to!

"Are you about to head around that corner?" L asked, irately pointing to a bend in the sidewalk. The brunette snorted, "Yeah. Why?"

"I'll take a detour through those buildings there," the mini-death gestured to a gap between the back of one office building and the next. "I can zip through the alley and meet you on the other side before he rounds the corner."

The mini-death watched in anxiety as Raito grappled with his proposal. He could tell that the mortal was trying desperately to come up with another puzzler for L to solve. Alas, he found none and conceded to L's plan. "Fine," he growled, "but if you get caught, I'm toast."

"I understand that," L lamented miserably, "and that is why I won't get caught."

Raito sashayed over to the bench and flopped into it like the tired, carefree teenager he was supposed to be. His phone magically fell out of his pocket, helped in part by his meticulous leaning in one direction and a careless swipe of the hand. L snatched it up and dragged across Raito's shadow. He withdrew into the bushes and flipped the phone open.

What he saw only served to add to the panic in the atmosphere.

There were _so many buttons_!

Wasn't technology supposed to make things _less_ complicated?

He angrily smudged a glob of mud across the screen on the shell of the phone, careful to locate the camera lens beforehand. Then, he set to work on finding the means by which the volume was changed. The mini-death muted the phone completely and navigated to the control that he assumed led to the camera.

The screen bubbled to life with the view from the mud-free camera lens.

Perfect.

He took an experimental picture with the camera, testing for noise.

None.

"Raito-kun! It works!" L cheered, praising his cellular phone skills. The mortal gave him the classic 'I'm Raito and I don't care' dip of the head before stretching his legs and continuing his walk. The stalker did likewise, adding a grumbled, incoherent statement of irrelevancy for good measure.

As he neared the camera, L focused on his face. Closer… closer… closer…

Ah! And he'd taken off those blasted sunglasses! What luck! It was probably an effort to look less conspicuous.

Of course, with the infamous Luck of the Psychopomp, the camera was probably full of photos.

…

L clicked the 'exit' shortcut with one button and found that, no, the camera wasn't full. There were no pictures in his phone.

Good. L returned the screen to the camera once again and aimed the lens at Raito's stalker's face. Closer… closer… and… there! L clicked the 'enter' button and the camera froze for a second, displaying the fruits of L's labor. The mini-death stared in awe at his handiwork. It was a perfect portrait. Good color, centered, L could see the length of his hair, the color of his eyes, the tone of his skin, and the form of his face.

It was all there.

As soon as the unwitting stalker's back was turned, L booked it for the alley. He raced across the not-park's lawn, zipped into the gap between the office buildings, dashed into the alley, passed a rusting dumpster, and pounced onto the other side of the sidewalk. Noting the amount of bystanders who would undoubtedly find a floating phone unusual, L slid it slowly along the pavement. Lucky for Raito, his phone was concrete-colored.

Speak of the devil, and he came sauntering around the corner without a care in the world. Wordlessly, he swept the phone up off the ground and went about scraping the mud off of it.

"It worked," L beamed, "I saved your picture. It's perfect."

"Thank God," Raito grumbled under his breath, looking profoundly relieved.

"I want you to see it," the mini-death mentioned. Raito sighed at him before flipping his dirty cell-phone open and examining the picture. In the glow of the electric screen, L could see Raito's calculating eyes grow wider and wider.

Raito finally smiled and chuckled, "This is really good."

The mini-death turned to putty on the spot. What he wouldn't do for more praise like that. Instead of expressing his excitement, however, he simply remarked, "I know."

Slowly and surely, Raito's eyes were changing. It wasn't a change that L liked. It was the sort of transformation eyes went through when their owner was thinking far too much. What was that gleam L saw? It didn't sparkle like excitement or insanity.

Fear, perhaps?

"What's wrong?" L grumbled, mood suddenly in the gutter.

"This picture…" Raito gulped, "I have to get rid of it."

"Pardon?" the mini-death hissed, thumping his foot against the exterior of a building. Get rid of it? After L went through all that trouble to capture it?

Raito sighed and shut his phone. "If I keep it there and someone from the police force finds it…"

The sentence went unfinished.

L chewed dejectedly on his thumb. This was a problem. Raito would have to keep close surveillance on his phone from now on. That, and he'd have to kill this guy as soon as possible.

Once again, quite annoyingly, L had created more problems than he solved. In an effort to reverse his own apprehension, the mini-death suggested, "Maybe you can just remember his face?"

"I'll sleep it off," Raito growled, "Besides, I'll need to remember it for about a month."

Contrary to only a second ago, however, Raito looked calm and passive as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. The mini-death wondered with vague interest if his mortal love-interest had thought up a plan already. Odds were, he was in the midst of thinking, but wanted to look confident about doing it.

L was still interested, though, and asked him what he was smiling about.

"There's my date," Raito remarked proudly. L straightened sharply and surveyed the crowd for any sign of his arch-nemesis. Teru was nowhere to be seen.

"Kidding," Raito smirked. The mini-death sulked and rolled his eyes. "You cycle through moods quickly, don't you?"

"Can't look too troubled now, can I?" Raito asked reasonably, casting L a sidelong leer.

The mini-death thought a moment, then shrugged his shoulders and nodded. "I suppose, but I hope you're thinking as much as I _hope_ you're thinking."

"That made no sense," remarked Raito.

"So it didn't," L sighed, crestfallen. "I'd like you to be thinking about what your next move is, Raito-kun. You haven't killed anyone since the day before yesterday."

Raito sighed, out of his confident funk again.

Ah, the long list that was Raito's 'To Think About' agenda. L supposed he felt a little sympathy for the mortal, given his current state of mental occupancy. His pat-on-the-back was countered strongly by the slap-in-the-face that was his dislike for Raito's dating protocol.

"I'm supposed to meet him in that restaurant over there," Raito suddenly pointed out, gesturing to a neon sign. Wasn't neon normally shut off during this time of day?

Huh.

L not-so-secretly dreaded the next two or more hours.

----

As Raito waltzed through the door of the restaurant, he noted two things.

First off, Ryuzaki's crush on him wasn't going to go away. The mini-death practically pitched over in a dead faint whenever Raito mentioned dating someone else. As much as Raito wanted to tell him off, he couldn't.

At least he _told_ himself that he wanted to tell Ryuzaki off.

…

Deep water he was treading. Sure he was on a date with a guy, but he wasn't gay. He wasn't! Really! Even if Halle appealed to no part of him in particular, men didn't either.

But…

Argh!

Raito was going to think too much about it and he wasn't going to be able to sleep!

Suddenly, he felt a soft pinch on the small of his back. Eyes widening, he spun around in the foyer of the restaurant and glared. There was Ryuzaki, tilting his head innocently and gnawing on his thumb.

"There was a wrinkle in your jacket, Raito-kun."

Raito turned back around, calmly, as if he _hadn't_ flipped out at an invisible man. Speaking of whom, since when did he care about wrinkles in Raito's clothes? Ryuzaki could've been politely making sure that the brunette looked his best on his date, but it was unlikely. Raito knew Ryuzaki for his ulterior motives.

Senses acute to the attention he'd drawn to himself, Raito straightened his jacket and continued walking.

"Can I help you, sir?" A waiter with baggy eyes and droopy hair asked. The brunette glanced down at him before replying, "Uh, yeah. I'm looking for A Mikami Teru. Is he here?"

The muddled little midget's eyes glazed over in thought. "Ah, yes," he said, "Tall? Dark hair?"

"Yep," Raito affirmed curtly.

"Right this way, sir."

Raito weaved through the mass of tables, tailing his guide closely. He wondered vaguely if his stalker was going to follow him into the restaurant. He'd be terribly conspicuous if he did.

The munchkin man skittered around a cluster of tables on his stubby little legs. He then stood, straight and stout like a garden gnome, and announced, "Your guest is here, sir."

Raito peered into the nearest booth, aware that his guide was no longer addressing him. Looking every bit as regal and sophisticated as a kirin, Mikami lounged in his seat and tapped at the corner of his glasses. "Ah! Raito-kun," he smiled, then addressed the waiter, "Thank you for finding him for me. I was afraid he walked out on me."

Raito grinned as sheepishly as he saw fit. "Am I that late?" he asked, scratching his scalp in mock-embarrassment. The short, tired-looking man then deemed it safe to leave. Paying close attention to his exit, Raito laughed nervously and eased himself into a spot on the opposite side of the booth.

Ryuzaki muttered something about his acting before miserably oozing into the floor.

"Two minutes late," Teru scolded halfheartedly.

Raito gave him the eye. Two minutes? _Two_ minutes?

"Relax," Teru chuckled, still tapping on his glasses, "Not everything I say is serious."

"It's not?" Raito asked in clear mock astonishment.

Funny. He'd been in Ryuzaki's presence so long, it seemed as if nothing was 'not serious.' Speaking of whom, where was he? Vanished! Again! Raito didn't want him to vanish! Was he still mad then? Had Raito's I'm-so-sorry-come-sleep-with-me trick not worked?

Not good.

He went into autopilot to speak with Teru about lunch. Truly, his mind was elsewhere with Ryuzaki. Raito couldn't stand how much he cared, and yet, he couldn't stop thinking about how downtrodden Ryuzaki looked.

Last night and today.

Maybe Raito needed to stop being so defensive…

Teru was waving his hands in front of Raito's eyes. The brunette snapped back into reality. "What?" He asked, blinking several times for good measure.

"You're out of it today," Tall Dark and Geeky warned, "Is something wrong?"

"No," Raito smiled, "Just feeling tired."

Mikami, however, read him like an open book. It went without saying that Raito didn't like to be read like an open _anything_. "Still fighting with your friend?" the dark-haired man asked.

"Something like that," Raito sighed, "I thought we were doing better this morning, but it was probably my imagination." Suddenly, Raito slapped the surface of the table with his palms and said, "I don't know why I'm bothering you about this. We're on a date."

Truthfully, he had no idea why he was so concerned, much less sharing this concern with another human being. He had no idea why Teru was so interested either. He'd get his answer in a few seconds.

"No, no," Teru placated with his hands in the air, "Do go on. I'd like to help if I may."

"All things considered," Raito monotoned past his inner surprise, "I think our situation is beyond help."

"Nothing's beyond help," Teru reasoned.

Raito eyed him. Mikami was an optimist… Scary. Better yet, he was optimistic about the relationship between his boyfriend and his boyfriend's _secret love interest._

Secret love interest.

The very syllables lurking in that sentence fragment ate at Raito's subconscious. It _was _one-sided, wasn't it? Raito's motives for trying to get Ryuzaki back in the house were purely selfish, weren't they?

He was so sure earlier that day. Raito _knew _that the only reason he wanted Ryuzaki in the house was because he hated it when a friend was mad at him. But… Raito sighed and pulled at the hair on one side of his head.

Nothing like swirling emotions to muddle one's mind.

"Maybe I should've waited a while."

Raito's attention snapped back into reality to notice Teru's borderline sheepish smile. Ah, shit. There Raito went, spoiling good dates… "Actually, I think some good curry would take my mind off of a few things," he mentioned with the purpose of lightening the atmosphere.

It did the trick and soon, the two of them were conversing about which food to order first.

----

L took note of the restaurant's high ceiling, large windows, creamy yellow paint color, and bright lighting. The booths were open and airy and the interior was decorated sparsely and sophisticatedly. It wasn't a particularly romantic restaurant by his standards, and that was good.

He assumed Raito would be needing (a shudder) _alone time_ with L's arch-nemesis. L didn't enjoy the amount of attention Raito was giving Mikami, un-boyfriend or not. The mini-death was better company than that lanky, four-eyed mortal any day! L was flirting with desperation, and desperation wasn't a frequent affair. Desperation and L belonged in their own separate sentences.

Raito had an odd and annoying means of drawing out the worst in L. He _ignored _him. L hated being ignored. How could any human possibly be so self-concerned?

How could any human _not_ be?

Time and time again, L lectured himself. If there was anything to be learned from Near's tragedy, it was that a human would always defy a psychopomp in favor of himself.

And, when given the choice, would choose any human over a psychopomp.

End of story.

Therein lay the dilemma. L knew all of these things. He knew how self-obsessed Raito was.

He knew, and he couldn't accept.

Raito was maddeningly beautiful. His hair gleamed like a wheat field beneath a red sun. His eyes were gems, cut so that every edge sparkled in the sunlight. He was tall, thin, athletic, intelligent… Raito was perfect!

In the knowledge of that perfection, he could have anything he wanted. Though his list of wants was fickle, L had a sinking feeling that he wouldn't be on it for however brief a time.

The notion dampened L's day.

Hence, there he was, making intimate friends with yet another wedge of cheesecake. Eating made him feel much better about himself. A piece of cake wasn't prejudiced against his race, lack of eyebrows, panda-circles, or monkey feet. A piece of cake couldn't shout at him or reject him. A piece of cake was simply delicious. That was all.

Now, it would be a lie to say that L was not in love with cake. He just happened to be more in love with Raito.

Through the hustle and bustle that was the kitchen, L heard footsteps drawing near. Probably another chef. L downed the last of his cheesecake and floated away from the fridge.

He peered at the intruder. L had been right. The man waddled over to the fridge in his powder-white apron and popcorn-puffed hat. Humming to himself, he daintily opened the refrigerator with the intention of withdrawing something.

A pause.

His peppered eyebrows shot up in uneven angles and he hummed in an entirely different manner.

L bit his thumb. He'd eaten one two many pieces of cheesecake, hadn't he?

He miserably oozed out of the room, an overturned dessert trolley the victim of his mood, and stalked over to where he was _certain_ Raito and Mikami would be snogging their lips off. He rounded the corner, floated over to the middle of the room and found…

That nothing was going on.

…

Raito and Mikami were talking. Chatting, if you would. Raito was smiling, but L recognized it as a characteristic, mildly glad smile. It wasn't a 'best friends forever!' smile. It wasn't an 'I love you soooo much!' smile.

Just a smile.

L was slightly comforted in that notion. The two of them were close, but not too close.

Raito barely noticed L. He glanced over once in a while, but that was it.

L settled into the booth across the isle and observed the antics of the two humans with a critical eye. Teru told a joke. Raito chuckled. Raito flung a chunk of tofu at Teru's hair. Teru spit lemonade at him through a straw. Raito bragged about his tennis trophies. Teru bragged about his chess skills.

He envied Mikami, being able to speak so openly with Raito and having the bravery to fool around with him. L could converse with Raito, but by the mortal's cold and indifferent demeanor, L could deduce that everything he said was incredibly boring. He could joke around with Raito, but he'd make an idiot out of either the mortal or himself in doing so.

A sigh.

As abruptly as it began, Raito's date ended. He and Mikami said their very lengthy good-byes. Mikami offered to pay Raito's bills and drive him home among other things, all of which Raito politely refused. It was uneventful, but it was a first date. Being first entitled it to be mild.

Not that L was complaining.

A kiss between Raito and Teru could wait another two-thousand years as far as he was concerned. He stalked the brunette out the glass restaurant doors and sulked as he waved goodbye to Teru.

Then, quite suddenly, Raito was walking home.

"Did you enjoy your date?" L asked halfheartedly, dragging his toes on the sidewalk. He was more absorbed in the grooves of the pavement than Raito's eyes, but he could feel the mortal turning and staring at him nonetheless.

"It was nice," Raito said nondescriptly.

'It was nice' could mean a variety of things. Wanting to know in what way the outing was 'nice,' L remarked, "That's very descriptive of you. Knowing you as well as I do, I'd say 'nice' could mean anything. You could go on a trip to the dentist's and say it was nice."

"It was…" Raito thought a moment. This caused L to arch a non-eyebrow and glance up. "It was normal. Not great, not bad. The food was good. The conversation was interesting. That's it," Raito deadpanned, "But Teru's a nice guy."

"I'm a nice guy," L mumbled incoherently.

"What was that?" Raito growled.

"I said I thought you weren't gay," L monotoned with his arms crossed selfishly over his chest.

"I'm not," Raito reasoned with his shoulders shrugged.

L blinked slowly. He'd never understand the way Raito's romantic mind worked. He eyed Raito up and down. On the outside, his face was the incarnation of tranquility. He aloofly waltzed down the sidewalk, Queen of Tokyo that he was, and carried himself with the general attitude of a know-it-all. The corners of his lips were slightly upturned in a knowing smile, his eyes were closed, and his face was tilted upward.

But something wasn't quite right. Raito was more hesitant than usual. Nothing he said to L in the past five minutes had been willingly and strategically announced.

He was thinking about something, and it wasn't what L expected him to be thinking about. The mini-death assumed Raito's mind to be full of Teru-this and Teru-that. This was not so. Apparent by the airy length of time it took him to form a half-intelligent answer about his date, Raito's mind was elsewhere.

Where?

In the interest of finding the source of Raito's turmoil in a roundabout way, L backtracked to their earlier conversation and ventured, "If you aren't gay, then why are you dating _men_?"

Raito took a longer step than he usually did. His foot hovered in midair before stumbling down in an awkward, un-mechanical, un-Raito manner. Ah… So Raito was thinking about his sexuality then?

And having a hard time with it?

This was new.

"I don't like guys," Raito denied, "Have you seen the porn magazines hidden in my room?"

"Yes," L remarked, "and if I remember correctly, you enjoyed looking at the only one with _men_ in it."

"That was a charade!" Raito hissed under his breath.

"Yes, yes," L rolled his eyes.

"I'm a 'girl' kind of guy. There are just… certain men I like more than women." Raito was grumbling now, as if he didn't want anyone to hear him.

_A girl kind of guy, eh?_ Context and a good knowledge of Raito's character were the only assets L had to translate that statement correctly."Certain men?" L asked, dreading what Raito might say.

"Well, yes," the brunette hesitated, "And I've realized that maybe…" here, he dropped off and gritted his teeth. Poor Raito. L recognized this as one of his futile attempts to squelch his emotions and appear as professional as possible. He was having trouble wrestling a subconscious something into submission.

L knew how frustrated Raito became when he couldn't control himself.

"Maybe?" L growled, wanting Raito to stop acting like a girl.

The mini-death suddenly became aware of two amber laser-beams burning holes in his side. "Maybe I like _some_ guys more than others," Raito spat.

Oh really? Well L was fed up with his 'I like him more than I like you' excuses. How L wished he was the person Raito liked more…

And yet…

Raito had failed to specify _which _guys he liked more than others.

…

…No.

L wasn't going there. He knew Raito too well. If he_ had_ meant what L hoped he meant, well… Mikami must've slipped something strong enough to kill an elephant into his food.

Needing closure, L ventured anxiously, "Some guys?"

"Definitely not you," Raito deadpanned scathingly. That comment should have felt icier than it did. Somehow, Raito was lacking the bite he usually had.

And that was how the cookie crumbled. Raito began and ended the more eventful half of his day with a statement from his ego, and not his heart. L crossed his fingers and stared at the ground.

Hopeful, wary, and anxious, if L hadn't been looking at the ground and had instead been admiring the reflective surface of the skyscraper next to him, he would have noticed a pale shadow flicker across the glass.

----

**Me: OMG! BIRTHDAI!**

**Chibi Misa: And to celebrate, we're all BOLDED!**

**Chibi L: -kazoos-**

**Chibi Raito: -still moping in the corner-**

**Me: Cake for you reviewers? Any kind you like? So long as it's got a candle on it because BURNING THINGS IS HALF THE FUN.**

**Chibi Misa: OMG YES.**

**Me: And a happy birthday to Danielle Anderson too! If you see her lurking in the reviews, glomp her and smother her with cake and pudding. This chapter's for her!**

**Chibi L: -giggles and pitches over in a sugar-induced seizure-**

**Chibi Misa:**** omfg wao. :O**

**Me: In the real world, I'm still wishing for an electric guitar, a Serbo-Croatian dictionary, and the ability to read minds. My single wish of you is…**

**Chibi Misa: Review!**

**Me: Yep! Review! Gimme' a nice, informative, fluffy present for my birthday (or a flame, because FLAMES WILL BE USED TO COOK MY FOOD), and I'll love you forever. A writer always wants to know when her works are appreciated!**

**Chibi Misa: So come on! Wish Danielle and Swirl a happy birthday! Review, review, review!**


	11. Thunderhorse

**DS**

**Disclaimer: **Own it? Psh! I have to take out a loan every time I want to by a Tootsie Pop.

Me: Well, I'm very –ahem- glad all of you are so EAGER for me to update… However, I'm extremely busy this school year. I have honors classes coming out of my ears and lately, the gods of RPG Maker XP have chewed on and mulled over every piece of my brain and determined it to be a light, nutty flavor.

Chibi L: In any case, please pardon the tardiness. Swirl can't help herself.

Me: Totally. I'm actually trying to code and illustrate my own RPG. Me! By myself! With my own characters!

Chibi Raito: I'm looking forward to your failure.

Me: Aren't we all?

Chibi L: -eye roll-

Me: As a bonus for waiting so gawrsh darn lawng, I've made this chapter extra gawrsh darn lawng.

Chibi L: Turn back now. For your own good. This thing's at least forty pages in Word.

Chibi Raito: Sweet wounded Jesus…

Me: I've added a little intermission, complete with **BOLDED, NOTICEABLE TEXT SO YOU KNOW WHEN TO STOP.**

Chibi L: Stop there if you want to catch your breath and continue some other time.

Me: I thought about making this doohickey into two different chapters, but what the hell. I don't like awkward endings, so I'm doing things _my_ way (Longest chapter in my history w00t).

Chibi Misa: Hah! As if any of you guys care about that. Welcome to more Death and His Shadow! Sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy the show. Read, review, and relax!

**D S 11**

Raito despised how his week was going. He had to make a speech a few days ago, which he hated. His relentless monologue consisted of a series of comfortable lies that the college officials wanted to hear. Ryuzaki had followed him to the podium like a love-struck German Shepherd. He sat behind Raito the whole time and stared into space.

That was all Raito could remember. He had forgotten the details of his speech.

He met with Halle, another event he couldn't remember anything about, and had his 'secret' conversations with Ryuzaki as well as Teru. Saturday bled into Sunday, and it seemed as if Monday hadn't really been there at all.

In short, Raito's week had been very, very boring.

Ryuzaki, bemusedly spinning himself in circles on the floor, was evidence to the monotony of the matter. He, who Raito assumed to be at home in all sorts of lazy situations, complained numerous times about the lack of things which had been going on lately.

True, there were more than enough events which _should_ have been spicing the day up. Raito could have demanded to know his stalker's name, devised a plan to kill him and his familiars in an anonymous way, gone on more dates with Teru, tried to figure out where Halle's allegiances lay, and so forth. The brunette refused. He sat on his bed, glared at the ceiling, and adamantly insisted on doing absolutely nothing.

"I'm sure you know this," Ryuzaki remarked blandly, waving his feet back and forth in the air, "but I'm quite bored."

"So am I," Raito admitted with a sigh.

"So why aren't we doing anything productive?" Ryuzaki inquired dryly, as if he'd known all along that Raito was wasting his time.

This was odd. Wasting time wasn't something Raito did on a daily basis. Perhaps he just lacked his usual vim and vigor about life. Life itself was, currently, more depressing than it had ever been. Raito needed something spontaneous to happen which concerned no voluntary act on his part. He knew that if anything exciting was going to happen soon, he wouldn't be the one to initiate it.

Killing had become very common and uninteresting as of the present. Raito would walk by the occasional TV shop or giant LCD screen, snapping at whatever criminal name showed up first. Granted, this wasn't his best plan of action. His stalker could infer that every death that took place that week was linked to the moment Raito was passing by a television screen.

Currently, Raito didn't care.

Son of a bitch.

"Ryuzaki," Raito groaned, mindless of all cameras. The addressed stopped squirming about on the floor and blinked up at him. "Yes?" he replied with a tilt of the head.

"I'm depressed," said Raito.

Ryuzaki's eyes went dull with a similar lack of enthusiasm. He puffed a noisy breath from his lips before sinking back down to the floor. "And why is that?" the mini-death grumbled.

"I don't know," Raito remarked flatly.

"Well, there's not much I can do about that now is there?"

"Probably not."

"Think then. You're awfully fond of thinking."

"I've been thinking."

"Then you shouldn't be having any problems."

"I'm not thinking the right things, Ryuzaki."

The mini-death emerged at the foot of the bed and dragged his upper half onto it. "Not thinking the right things?" he quoted, "And what would you mean by that?"

"Thinking about all the things I want to be doing, and coming up with reasons not to do them."

"Hmm…" the mini-death hummed sadly, "That _is_ a problem." He then blinked his giant, coal-black eyes and tilted his head slightly as if some wondrous thought had just struck his mind. "Perhaps you need a bit of inspiration."

Raito laboriously hefted the top half of his body off of his bed and peered unevenly at Ryuzaki. "Inspiration?" he repeated skeptically.

"Quite," The psychopomp hummed enthusiastically.

Raito rolled his eyes and fell unceremoniously back onto his quilts. And how was he to get his inspiration? Raito was damned if inspiration didn't bust through his window right then and _force_ him to do something.

Luckily, or unluckily as the case may have been, inspiration came in much the way Raito had imagined it.

Minus the James Bond music, shattering glass, hollering, and gunfire.

Through slitted eyes, Raito watched as something black and vulture-esque floated through his window. It caught Ryuzaki by surprise and he twisted his head around to squint at it. The black, winged apparition moseyed away from the window, shot a bug-eyed, stupid glare at Raito, grinned with a mouth full of needles, and said, "Yo."

Raito snorted at it. He waved his hand dismissively and sighed, "Talk, Ryuzaki."

He didn't need to open his eyes to know that Ryuzaki's eyes were twitching peevishly at him. The mini-death grumbled underneath his breath, "'Talk,' he says…"

Raito listened, apathetic, as Ryuzaki explained the situation. Cameras this, bugs that, et cetera. The brunette could not pretend he wasn't shocked to see Ryuk, though. The past few weeks, Ryuk had disappeared. Vanished, it seemed, into thin air. Yet here he was, wide-eyed and dumb as he usually was, and he hadn't missed a beat. Raito wondered with a slight squirm of the toes if Ryuk had been stalking him around.

"Oh," Ryuk belched in his customary imperceptivity. He glanced up at the ceiling. "I don't see any cameras."

Raito rolled his eyes. Oh yes, the police were going to put _Hollywood film cameras _in every corner of the room.

Dumbass.

Raito noticed with amusement that Ryuzaki's mood had deteriorated to devious sarcasm. "Of course you can't see them," the mini-death hushed theatrically, "That's because they're _invisible _cameras, Ryuk."

"Hurmmmm?" the half-dead vulture breathed and scratched the tuft of oily black hair on top of his head. "Invisible cameras?"

"Oh yes…" Ryuzaki murmured cryptically, "They're everywhere, you know."

The shinigami made a show of scratching his chin with long, black, ribbon-like fingers. "That's very interesting."

Raito snorted at him and rolled his eyes. What an idiot.

"Wait!" Ryuk suddenly piped up with raw enthusiasm, "If Raito can walk around snapping his fingers and there are cameras everywhere, wouldn't he have been caught by now?"

Raito glared down his nose at the shinigami. Perceptive little bugger when he wanted to be, wasn't he?

Ryuzaki never missed a beat. "Oh, you never know..."

The shinigami turned the notion over in his hollow little head for a while. He then fixed Raito in place with a fish-eyed, glassy stare. "Are you worried?"

"No."

"Hurmmmm…"

Raito rolled his eyes. He couldn't communicate verbally with Ryuk and tell him what a dumbass he was. He could only use the vaguest of phrases. Thus, he relied on Ryuzaki to channel his frustration.

"You're not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?"

Ah, there it was… Ryuzaki's dry, frank manner of speech never ceased to amaze.

Delightful.

"Hurmmm?" Ryuk thought for a moment, doubtlessly with his ribbon-fingers somewhere on his face again. "Oh," he puffed suddenly, the tired, malnourished hamster in his head slowly limping on its wheel, "I get where you're coming from."

The crackle of evil in the air was more than enough to signal Ryuzaki's flat, straight, and deadly accurate glare of disapproval.

Ryuk rambled on, oblivious to the heavy air, and had something vaguely interesting to say. "By the way, there's something I came here to tell you guys."

Raito sat up in bed and hunched over his knees, _almost_ intrigued by Ryuk's words. "Do tell," was all Ryuzaki said. Ryuk gave both of them a once-over and addressed the mini-death, "You know the white, spongy shinigami I told you about?"

"Yes?"

"Saw her yesterday," Ryuk breathed.

For some oddly disconcerting reason, Raito didn't like the look on Ryuzaki's face. "Is there something you want to tell me?" he asked rather ambiguously to no one in particular. Ryuzaki furtively ducked his head between his shoulders and glared shadow-eyed at Ryuk.

The shinigami took his hint and explained, if a bit singsong, "Rem. She doesn't like you much."

Uh huh… white shinigami. The only remotely white shinigami Raito had ever laid eyes on was that 'Sidoh' thing. A memory did click, however. He remembered Ryuk mentioning something in the distant past about the female shinigami who's Death Note had malfunctioned. If he recalled correctly, she'd been trying to kill him with a heart attack.

…

"…You look like you've about figured it out," Ryuk laughed clumsily.

Figured it out? Of course Raito had figured it out. He'd also figured out how positively _disgusting _and _horrified _one could feel in the pit of his stomach. Raito felt as if his lungs had turned to stone and were well on their way into his gut, squishing his spleen, his liver, and every last cell of intestinal tissue on the way.

The thing that had given him a heart attack was back. No, more mortifying: It had never left. It had been biding its time. Now it was circling him, like the pale and ever-watching shadow of a hawk, waiting to take him down.

When Raito said he wanted something involuntary and exciting to happen, this was NOT what he had in mind.

----

L sighed. Granted, given the precariousness of the present situation, there was not much else he could do. Raito was most definitely frazzled, appearing as though he'd been struck in both shins with a piece of steel framing. L imagined that the sensation was the same.

L averted his gaze to Ryuk, who had suddenly barked a peal of lazy laughter. He eyed the skinny, oily mass of tar and feathers and wondered if Ryuk possessed the apparent mental vacuity L had at first accused him of having. It was difficult to imagine Ryuk as a criminal mastermind, but not difficult to imagine him taking pleasure in the pain of others.

Chances were, he loved to watch Kira squirm.

L had opted for the 'silent contemplation' method of dealing with the situation. So far, it was working.

Working, in the sense that L hadn't broken anything yet.

Proclaiming the combined frustrations of one mute Raito Yagami and himself, L hissed, "What are we supposed to do about it?"

"Nothing," Ryuk replied frankly, "Unless you wanna' try and do something."

L glared flatly, shoulders slumping as he heaved a heavy sigh. "I suppose you're not going to tell us the area she's frequenting?"

"Not really," the shinigami breathed.

L fluffed his feathers up in a puff of righteous indignation. The nerve! Floating into Raito's room after all this time, scaring him out of his wits, and refusing to inform him how to counteract the evils of which he'd become a recent victim.

L felt like shouting his head off.

He had Raito's nerves to consider!

Instead, however, he chose a frustrated, darkly angry tone of voice. He growled, "Then what, prey, was the point in telling us?"

Ryuk tilted his jester's face and mused for a bit. "Just thought you might like to know."

"Did it ever occur to you that, in opposition to being told half of the story, we enjoyed our blissful ignorance?"

"Lotsa' big words."

"You should have left us alone."

"Hey! Let Kira-boy over there talk for once."

"He can't talk."

"Really?"

"Cameras."

"Oh. Right," Ryuk scratched a spot on his side, "Shame."

L noted how scratchy the shinigami was feeling that night. He made an acidic remark about it. "Mosquitoes get to you?"

Ryuk stared dumbly at him with his globular fish-eyes. "'Course not," he announced proudly, "Mosquitoes can't bite me."

Brilliant.

It occurred to L that Raito was no longer occupying any corner of his peripheral vision. Interested, he rocked back on his heels and scanned the room. Raito was still on his bed, but had fallen backward and was currently endeavoring to halfheartedly suffocate himself with a pillow.

L raised an eyebrow.

How many times had that happened now? Was it a habit L should have been worried about?

In the midst of all this, he was inclined to remember Raito's sincere hope for inspiration not ten minutes ago. "Inspired?" he asked impishly with a thumbnail between his teeth.

A fuzzy voice, like that of a tiger surrounded in goose down, emanated from Raito's pillow.

"Dammit."

"I suppose you'll have to get out of bed and do something now," L grinned in spite of himself, taking part in Ryuk's annoy-the-hell-out-of-Kira pastime. Like a bolt from the blue, Raito's pillow was suddenly halfway through L and well on its way to the computer. The mini-death whistled as it found an unlikely mark in the table lamp next to the television. The lamp wobbled to and fro, desperate to keep itself upright. Meanwhile, the pillow lurked villainously where it had dropped at the foot of the desk.

L eyed the pillow a second longer, lest it decide to attack him again.

"Whoa," whistled Ryuk.

"Apparently," began L with an eye focused on the pillow, "You're not in the best of moods."

"No," growled Raito.

"It's not like you to be this violent," L pointed out. The brunette had been marginally calmer in slightly more strenuous situations. Currently, however, L supposed his mind was overloaded.

Shinigami here and there, popping up to say 'Hello' with a pen in one hand and a Death Note in the other... Given that, he was led back to the reason he'd been angry in the first place.

"Is there anything else you'd like to tell us about this 'white, spongy shinigami' of yours?" L deadpanned.

"Maybe," Ryuk mused, "I'll have to think about it."

"Think now," L warned.

Ryuk eyed him the way an angler fish eyed any other fish, teeth and all. "I don't have to think if I don't want to. I could care less, really."

L refused to be intimidated. With a glare as sharp, cold, and flat as a plane of glass, he demanded, "When you change your mind, you'll be sure to let us know."

"Sure," belched Ryuk.

The mini-death glared him down, eyes completely unwavering. Ryuk tilted his stupid head and a long, icy silence ensued.

L wondered what, if anything, was rattling around in the shinigami's empty little skull. Check that. There was definitely _something_ crawling around in there, but L couldn't discern its size, creativity, or malice. He wasn't used to ignorance, and his lack of knowledge was beginning to irk him. It would appear that shinigami weren't the most perceptive of creatures, but perhaps they weren't the stupidest either. L kept an eye on Ryuk.

"You guys are weird," Ryuk yawned at last. He turned around carelessly, as if to leave by the window, and then jumped to his toes. The shinigami whirled around, his ridiculous grin forever plastered on his face, and whistled, "Saayyy… Raito! You got any apples?"

Raito sat straight up, giving Ryuk a down-the-nose death glare. "Absolutely not," he refused with his arms crossed across his chest.

Ryuk slumped. "Not one?"

"No."

"Nowhere?"

"No."

Ah… L knew what this was about. Raito was afraid that the other rooms in the house were bugged. If an apple were to suddenly float up into the air and eat itself into oblivion, there were bound to be a few raised eyebrows somewhere in Tokyo. L knew for a fact that there were no cameras or bugs in the fridge, so he was home safe.

Thank God for that.

"Bah," Ryuk dismissed with a scornful wave of the arm, "You're no fun."

"Go away," commanded Raito.

"Fine," growled Ryuk as he sailed forlornly through the panes of glass and wafted into the street.

"You're in quite the foul mood today," remarked L, regaining his indifference.

"And you're not?" the brunette hissed with amber eyes gleaming dangerously.

"I've taken my time to consider your predicament," L half-lied, "and I've deemed it to be no threat to you."

L was a liar, of course, but Raito's happiness was currently the only thing that mattered. When the mortal politely asked him why Ryuk's white shinigami wasn't a threat, L replied, "If she's the one who tried to kill you with a heart attack and that strangely convenient fever, she hasn't tried anything for a long time. Perhaps she's lost interest in you."

"What about the subway?" Raito countered ambiguously.

The mini-death sighed, still depressed about the multitude of mistakes he'd made that day. He wasn't good at admitting failure, so he stuck with an answer that wouldn't make himself sound stupid. "Perhaps we were a bit too cautious. Though the man did have guns in his pockets, I don't believe he would have shot you in such a crowded area."

Raito rolled his eyes and sighed, "Whatever…"

L blinked several times, blearily and depressingly without enthusiasm. It was _extremely_ unlike Raito to be this lethargic. Maybe he was sick?

Quite suddenly, as if his bed had burst into flames, both of Raito's feet were on the floor. L tilted his head queerly and squinted. Raito had recently taken to walking over to his desk chair and alighting on it like a bird of prey. This was new.

Raito had quite a habit of changing his moods…

L would have to keep that in mind.

"And what would you be doing?" L asked, genuinely interested, scooting over the floor to Raito's desk.

"Something productive," was all Raito said.

L rolled his eyes. "Would you be able to indulge further details of this 'something productive' if we were outside?"

"Maybe," Raito shrugged with his eyes half-closed. L sat, patiently, and waited for the sigh heralding the mortal's decision. Finally, he yawned, stretched, and informed the cameras, "I guess I need to go for a walk."

L deduced that this was a positive development and rolled about the floor as Raito gathered various articles of clothing that he'd need for his walk. "Might as well go get some coffee or something," he muttered more to the room than anything else.

----

Out of the house, and in desperate need of a furtive reason to be so, Raito flipped his cell phone open and dialed Mikami's number. He swallowed a lump in his throat when he was reminded of the picture that was _still_ on his phone.

A giddy feeling came over him when he thought about how soon he'd have to plan his stalker's demise. Firstly, he'd have to confirm the man's name. Secondly, he'd have to figure out whether or not he was alone. Thirdly, he'd have to execute the unsuspecting victims in a manner that was in no way traceable to himself.

Raito blew a puff of air at his bangs.

Why hadn't he done it earlier?

Ryuzaki was glaring woefully up at him with those shaded holes-for-eyes. He slumped as he trudged heavily at Raito's heels, looking generally pathetic. "And you're calling _him_…" he muttered.

The brunette cast a silencing glower over his shoulder. Mikami's name had become something of an expletive when used around Ryuzaki. If Raito mentioned anything remotely resembling any syllable of Teru's first or last name, the mini-death would squint his eyes, curl his fingers, and snarl or stick his tongue out as if he'd tasted something nasty. Also, Teru was no longer 'Teru.' He was 'him,' 'he,' or 'that guy.'

Raito was abruptly torn away from his thoughts when a scratchy "Hello?" blared through the speaker.

It had only recently occurred to Raito that he might have been interrupting something. Suppressing a flustered feeling, he managed a smooth, "Uh, hi. Teru?"

"Speaking," the voice yawned.

"This is Raito."

The voice immediately took on a warm tone, "Oh! Raito! Sorry, I didn't check my caller ID." Yaawwnnn… "Just woke up, you know."

"It's one-o-clock in the afternoon," Raito deadpanned, wondering why punctual old Mikami would be sleeping in.

"Hm?" the voice sounded mildly surprised, "One already? I must've stayed up longer than I thought."

Not entirely inconvenienced by casual conversation, Raito asked, "Why were you awake so late?"

"Essays," Teru grumbled, voice still husky from sleep.

Raito laughed to cover up the flighty feeling in the pit of his stomach that Teru's tone of voice had evoked. "Essays, right. About what?"

"Current events," the older man mentioned before venturing a light, "Hang on a sec…" and fumbling around for something out of his reach. After he'd gotten a hold of whatever he'd been aiming for, he casually rambled on, "I volunteered to research anything in the field of law."

"Like what?" Raito asked, fond of questions and having nothing else to say.

"Kira," said Teru.

Raito froze for a second, wondering what to say. "Everyone's still hyped up about that, huh?" he offered his input somewhat awkwardly.

"Of course," Teru stated as if Raito's strangeness hadn't occurred to him at all, "Kira _has_ slowed down a bit recently, but that doesn't mean he's disappeared altogether."

"True," admitted Raito through clenched teeth.

So if Teru noticed Kira's sudden decline in judgment, A and W had probably noticed by then as well. Naturally, they would deduce that Kira was under some degree of pressure. Without a doubt, they'd already linked Kira's hesitation with their spies.

Currently, Kira kicked a pebble on the sidewalk and blew a puff of air at his bangs. Why was everything so _difficult_? He'd have to oust his own stalker along with any others.

But first, Raito would have to figure out who he was and who he worked for.

A loud sigh resounded through the speaker on Raito's cellular phone. "Actually," Teru hummed, "I was wondering if I could ask a favor of you."

Somewhat distractedly, Raito answered, "Yeah, sure."

"You survived one of Kira's attacks, right?"

"So the story goes," Raito fake-smiled. How the hell did _everyone_ know about that?

"Not to use you or anything," Mikami assured, "but I was wondering if I could interview you about it."

"Interview?" Raito scoffed, "What are you, a reporter?"

"Oddly enough, that's my second vocational choice," the other man mentioned nostalgically. "Journalist, actually," he corrected. He then took a moment to think, it seemed, and came to the conclusion that he'd said something wrong. "I didn't mean to offend. You don't even have to think of it as an interview. Consider it a get-to-know-you sort of thing."

Raito considered his choices for a moment. He wasn't doing himself any harm in talking to Mikami as long as he chose his words carefully. He'd seem awfully cold if he turned Mikami down.

"It's alright," Raito conceded grudgingly, casting a searching eye at Ryuzaki.

The mini-death was trotting at his heels, unconcerned with the world. Ryuzaki shrugged his shoulders in response to Raito's glance and muttered Teru's curse-word-likeness under his breath.

"Good, good," Teru chirped, "I was wondering where I could meet you."

Where indeed?

"He's still following you," Ryuzaki deadpanned, referring to Raito's stalker. The brunette rolled his eyes. Ryuzaki could be quite the rain cloud when he wanted to be. What did Raito care if he was being followed? It had become commonplace recently, though he wished it would stop.

Wait a second…

Oh, perfect.

"Say, Teru," Raito purred into the phone, "Why don't you and I go out for a while."

"Where did you have in mind?" Mikami hummed appreciatively.

"An amusement park," Raito mentioned, "How about Spaceland?"

"Spaceland?" Mikami laughed a bit incredulously at the other end of the line, "I haven't been there in ages."

Raito shrugged his shoulders. The amusement park was grounded in the interests of older children and romantic teens, but Raito could testify that it was as good a dating destination as any. "Well," he drew out his vowels as if he were fidgeting with his toes and twisting his hair around one finger, "I guess we don't have to go _there_…"

As Raito expected, Teru ate his words at the speed of light and reasoned, "Anything for you, Raito."

The brunette managed a genuinely impish grin. "That's what I wanted to hear."

Behind him, Raito could hear Ryuzaki practically chewing his fingertips off.

"So where should I meet you?" Raito swaggered, pulling at a strand of his hair. His not-boyfriend paused for a moment in thought before agreeing to meet Raito in two hours at the bus station in front of his apartment building.

Hanging up turned out to be a more difficult matter. Mikami insisted that he wasn't going to hang up first. Raito, likewise, aimed to be a gentleman. They agreed to hang up the phone at the same time, on the count of three, and both ended up asking each other at the same time after three whether or not the other was still there.

It happened two more times before Raito gave up.

"Goodbye, Teru," he laughed, feeling absolutely ridiculous.

"Goodbye, Raito," Teru replied in an equally ridiculous way. Teru, however, seemed better-versed in the art of girlish goodbyes, and refused to hang up the phone first.

"Fine," Raito sighed good-humoredly, "I'll hang up first."

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

After a block and a half of walking and arguing in a slightly more mature 'No, you first!' sort of way, Raito resolved to hang up his phone.

"That was painful to listen to," Ryuzaki muttered.

Raito cast the mini-death a withering glare over his shoulder. "Believe it or not," he growled, "I have to keep things interesting or my relationship with him goes down the drain."

"Fine by me," Ryuzaki grouched, crossing his arms tightly across his chest.

Raito hissed an aggravated sigh and dug his nails into one side of his head. Why couldn't Ryuzaki just _chill out_ for a second?

"Listen, okay," Raito growled at Ryuzaki, "I've got a plan-"

"Another one of those?" lamented the mini-death, feet melting miserably into the concrete.

"Would you let me finish?" Raito shrilled angrily through gritted teeth.

A pause.

A very long pause.

"Yes, Raito-kun," sighed Ryuzaki with an audible slump to his voice, "Forgive me for interrupting."

If anything, this comment only served to ignite Raito's divine rage. Why? Ryuzaki's voice wasn't sarcastic. He hadn't said anything horribly wrong.

So why was Raito so angry at him?

Because he felt bad for yelling?

Guilt, perhaps?

Or maybe lo- Oh hell no. Raito was _not_ going to go into that today, no matter how much he wondered.

Knowing that Ryuzaki's pathetic sniveling shouldn't have evoked the emotional response that it did, Raito flew into a quiet, confused rage. Not having any other solution to the problem, he blamed the mini-death.

Raito spun on his heels, mindless of anything within earshot, glared hard enough to melt steel, and hissed a cryptic, "Why do you have to _do_ that?"

"Do what?" Ryuzaki blinked innocently, genuinely taken aback by the brunette's sudden fit of anger.

Quietly and with as much poise as possible, Raito spasmodically quirked an eyebrow and gritted, "Apologizing. It makes me sick."

Ryuzaki furrowed his brow and gave Raito a dull, sooty glare. "No apologies then? Frankly, I'm not sure what to think of you anymore."

As Raito was wondering at a coherent answer to Ryuzaki's insult, a red mustang roared past. Curiously, the street went from bustling to silent.

Raito narrowed his eyes and peered loathingly at the other pedestrians lining the street. He slapped his rage on them then, sneering and wondering why _every last one of them_ had to go mute all of the sudden. What was more, they were all staring, moony-eyed where the mustang would have vanished over the curve of a little hill.

Seconds later, and the street was full of murmurs.

Temper severely piqued and lacking a reasonable target to lash out on, Raito turned back to Ryuzaki and hissed, "What was that?"

Ryuzaki was dead silent, nonexistent eyebrows raised and one foot scratching at fraying jeans. Raito expectantly tapped at the fabric of his coat. When Ryuzaki insisted on saying nothing, the brunette intervened. "Ryuzaki," he growled warningly.

The addressed hiked his eyebrows further into his hairline and mimicked Raito's arrogant stance. He tilted his head to the side, tapped one foot on the ground boredly, and bored through Raito with his unconcerned black eyes.

"Say something," Raito growled. Yelling at someone who wouldn't reply was about as much fun as pulling teeth.

Ryuzaki blinked and chewed boredly at a corner of his bottom lip.

"What are you getting at?" Raito deadpanned as his shoulders slumped. His pent-up frustration was racing around in his head, looking for something to attack, and finding nothing.

A deep breath and roll-of-the-eyes from Ryuzaki. "I so assumed-" Yes! Finally! He was talking! "-that keeping quiet would keep me from angering you, Your Highness."

Hah! Perfect! Raito could have danced with joy at Ryuzaki's insults. His enthusiasm was renewed at having someone to shout at. When Raito accused, "There you go, saying all the wrong things at _exactly_ the wrong time," what he meant was, 'Thank you _so_ much for giving up and letting me win.'

The mini-death sensed this with a shake of the head and grumbled, "And I thought I knew the way your mind worked."

Wrong. In his head, Raito announced proudly that no one knew how his mind worked and therefore the argument had been his victory.

Sensitive as ever to Raito's thoughts, Ryuzaki rolled his eyes and mentioned offhandedly that he had nothing to do for two hours.

Ah yes… two hours. The two hours he had to wait for Mikami.

The two hours he had to wait until his plan was set in motion.

Which brought Raito back to the reason he'd been angry in the first place. He wanted to share his brilliance with Ryuzaki. Currently, however, that whim had gone its course. Ryuzaki would just have to wait and witness his superior intelligence.

He set his mind to wondering what he'd do for two hours.

Adolescently, he suggested that Ryuzaki and himself both go window-shopping. Ryuzaki replied that if he'd ever heard a queer proposal in his lifetime, that was it. Raito replied quite stubbornly that he wasn't gay, though he had a sinking feeling that he was in denial. Ryuzaki affirmed that he was, indeed, in denial.

Raito sighed forlornly, enthusiasm gone.

Heh… denial.

----

Raito had resolved not five minutes ago to wander aimlessly about every avenue and byway until by sheer happenstance he fell upon the bus stop in front of Mikami's apartment one hour and fifty minutes from then. That he even knew the location of the other man's apartment was a colossal stress-factor for L.

During one of Raito's periodic inspections of a nearby display window, L made his worries known. "How do you know where he lives?" the mini-death asked, selfishly pulling at a strand of his messy hair.

"He told me once," Raito mentioned casually with his eye on a shiny, new, portable DVD player. L's eyes drooped in a depressing way. "I suppose he'll be inviting you over to his apartment sometime…" he groused.

Raito glared peevishly at him, one corner of his sneer visibly twitching, and said, "It's not like I'm going to go over there and _sleep_ with him or anything."

At the magic phrase, L's face contorted into a scowl and he melted into a stagnant pool of emo between the cracks in the pavement. Through his misery, he could hear Raito scoff. "I said I wouldn't, okay? If anything, you should be happy!"

"Oh no, I'm happy," L wailed, "It's the fact that you even _considered_ the action that I'm worried about."

"Grow up, Ryuzaki," Raito sighed as if the world was only a huge inconvenience, "What would you think of first if someone you didn't know, someone _interested _in you, gave you their address?"

"If it were _him_," Ryuzaki spat, "I'd see someone for shock therapy and a little hypnosis before ripping up any shred of evidence that his address ever existed."

"That's because you're jealous," Raito deadpanned.

Recalling that they'd already had this conversation before, L announced, "Yes, Raito-kun. I'm jealous."

Notwithstanding the high frequency of L's confessions, Raito still appeared uneasy. He pulled his fingers over his eyelids, massaging in circles and sighing all the way. "Ryuzaki, how much do you like me?"

Hmm… now there was a question. Despite his rampant feelings, L forced himself to calm down and consider the question. Raito deserved an honest answer.

He enjoyed Raito's company _much_ more than strawberry shortcake, he thought that Raito's eyes were the most beautiful things he'd ever seen, he wanted to throttle anyone who spoke the least bit amiably with him, and he'd been utterly crushed whenever Raito insulted him. When Raito was in danger, L panicked. L did not panic. He thought things through rationally and decided through much reflection the best course of action. His attachment to the brunette mortal was in direct contrast with his rational habits. Before he met Raito, L had never considered he'd harbor any affection at all for anything fickle, expendable, irrational, and ultimately temporary.

Temporary.

If Raito were to die…

Hm.

'Hm' was the only articulate emotion he could put into syllables. If he would have put sounds to the horrors thrashing around in his gut, he wouldn't have been able to hear himself think. If Raito were, through some mysterious and tragic consequence of the universe, to die… L couldn't quite put his finger on a reaction. He wouldn't kill himself. He wouldn't go on a furious rampage.

He would simply cease to exist.

Simple as that.

Through much contemplation, L arrived at a suitable answer. "I don't like you, Raito-kun," he stated logically, "I think it's something more than that."

The weather reflected Raito's mood perfectly. His usually bright brunette hair seemed oddly at home against the dull grey sky and his posture lost its confidence. Raito slumped against the building's brick wall, scraping his jacket along the ridges. Collectively, along with his scuffed sneakers and faded blue jeans, Raito radiated gloom.

Any normal man would have puffed his chest out proudly upon hearing that he was admired. Speaking of normal, under other circumstances, Raito would practically parade around the room at the drop of a compliment. That smug smile of his would slither onto his lips and his eyes would glow with pride. His shoulders would square and he would radiate such dignity that any close bystander would be cured of _cancer_.

L didn't get it.

He said, 'Gosh, Raito, you're the prettiest thing I ever saw,' and the addressed dove miserably into a vast quagmire of depression.

L wondered whether Raito's condition warranted worry, but knew better than to ask for fear of bruising the brunette's ego. He resigned himself to sit quietly on the rim of Raito's personal space until the storm passed.

Raito sighed with his eyes fixed on a grain in the concrete. He dug his hands deeper into his jean pockets and shifted his weight first to his right foot, then his left.

"I need to talk to you about this," he admitted after a long silence, sounding as if he were condemning himself to death. L didn't appreciate the tone of his voice. Warily, he ventured, "You don't sound like you want to."

Raito sighed painfully, shifting his feet again with his eyes downcast.

"I have to."

L immediately discerned that a glum Raito was, in all likelihood, the worst thing he had ever seen. Aiming to lighten the air if only for a second, L mentioned, "Well, now we have something to talk about for an hour and forty minutes."

Raito breathed a humorless "Hmph."

As L waited for Raito to react, he took his time to notice how many people passed by and accepted with a turn of the head that the brunette was just a very good-looking, schizophrenic street bum. Most of them kept their distance, probably intimidated. Raito had adopted a nasty habit of following them with his eyes.

Speak of the devil…

"Let's go into an alley or something," Raito mumbled beneath his breath.

L quirked an eyebrow. Raito wasn't normally this hesitant, but his behavior was understandable, considering the nature of his predicament. "Won't your stalker be suspicious if you suddenly disappear down a dark, dusty alley?" L asked with a thumb between his lips.

Raito's shoulders heaved again in a deep sigh. "I guess…"

L knew Raito well enough to predict that if he were to discuss such matters in public, the embarrassment would be too much.

Suddenly, Raito breathed one of those gloomy sighs he was so fond of and shoved himself off of the brick. He wordlessly made his way to a bench on the opposite side of the crowded street and collapsed into it. L followed. The brunette then took out his cell phone and flipped it open, pretending to dial a number.

Ah.

L knew where this was going. He felt sorry for Raito, putting himself in this much stress. At the same time, he wanted to cheer for the mortal's sense of urgency. That he was resorting to such desperate measures in order to talk to L was a sign in itself. Raito was determined.

L perched calmly on the flaking, green-painted, wooden bench while Raito struck up a bogus conversation between him and an imaginary person. He wasn't performing his cell-phone charade for his stalker, though. He just didn't want any bystanders to look at him like he was a lunatic.

Raito and his pride…

"Ryuzaki," Raito began the meaningful segment of his not-conversation, "I know you've told me before, but I just…" he sighed, trying visibly to keep his cool, rolling his eyes for good measure. He glared accusingly at L, the fingers on his free hand curling painfully into the soft skin on his palms.

L recognized Raito's anger for what it was. This was how he dealt with emotions he wasn't familiar with. When Raito was afraid, he yelled. When he was confused, he threw a fit. When he was embarrassed, he throttled things. L's only conclusion was that he didn't often experience negativity.

Raito growled through a set jaw, "I don't know how to word it, okay."

L shrugged his shoulders, knowing that if he got all gushy and gooey, Raito would storm off out of shame. He took the casual approach, trying to lull the brunette's temper into something tamer. For the first time in his life, L announced the three words he never thought he'd say and felt like they actually meant something. He wished they'd have been uttered under more romantic circumstances, but neither L nor Raito were good romantics.

"I love you, Raito-kun," L announced, feeling butterflies suddenly metamorphose in his gut and attack the lining of his stomach. He ignored the fact that he sounded every bit like a pre-teen girl and awaited Raito's reaction.

The mortal hissed a few times in what sounded like a plethora of 'tch's and 'keh's. L could tell by the wild look in Raito's eyes and the way he kept burying them in his free hand that he was completely unprepared for L's confession. Maybe he was just having trouble accepting being crushed on by an imaginary cloud of chilled air.

"I have a hard time believing that," Raito barked icily. As Kira twiddled with the antenna on his phone, L mentioned, "It's true."

"How do you know?" Raito asked, sounding a bit more weary than angry this time. L interpreted his slow change in attitude as a positive sign. "Well," L breathed, "First off, I think you're terribly attractive. Would you like me to go into further detail about that?"

"No thanks," Raito bit.

"I see," L shrugged the oppressive atmosphere off. "I think you're incredibly smart, if a bit impulsive."

"Gee, thanks," the brunette snarled defensively.

"Actually, I find it cute," L mentioned harmlessly, "And without your impulsiveness, I'm afraid you wouldn't need much help from me." He carefully studied Raito from the corner of his eye. The brunette's amber eyes were darting right and left, though ever focused at the pavement in a catoblepatic way. "I rather like helping you, Raito-kun," the mini-death elaborated.

He should have known better than to expect a response to flattery. Raito had decided to be angry, and he couldn't rant very well to a compliment. Not wanting to put him on the spot any longer than required, L elaborated, "I try to keep my distance from you and Mikami-" Feh. Like breathing asphalt, that name. "-but I can't help myself. I don't like the idea of someone else touching you, potentially kissing you, and eventually going much farther than I care to describe. I'd like to think I can partake in the activities you and Mikami-" Keh. There it was again. "-could partake in eventually, being humans. Alas, I can't."

Oh boy. If L went any farther, he was going to embarrass Raito so much, he'd keel over and die.

"Like what?" Raito scoffed, "You want to… _kiss_ me?" He spat the word out as if it was a popcorn kernel stuck in his teeth.

"Of course," L stated as casually as he could.

"And… what else?" Raito asked grudgingly. L knew very well that Raito had a perfect idea of the things the mini-death would want to do to him. However, he was Raito, and he was proud.

L sighed. "Hold you. Snuggle, wrap my arms around your waist… that kind of stuff."

Well, he didn't want to scare Raito off…

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm not a _girl_," the brunette spat, eyes still focused on the pavement.

L shrugged, trying to keep his side of the conversation open and carefree, "You don't have to be. It's more complicated than that." He used the word 'it' because 'love' would send Raito into a rage of self-consciousness.

"The way you're describing it, I'm the girl in this relationship," Raito muttered darkly.

"We're both men," L mentioned offhandedly. Then, purely for spice, L offered, "We can settle things like men." He narrowed his eyes and grinned at Raito, "If you ever want to challenge my authority, we can fight it out, but I'm actually quite strong."

"I'll keep that in mind," Raito groused with a roll of the eyes.

L was content to let Raito think of another topic of conversation. After a minute's hesitation and antenna-tweaking, the brunette asked, "So… what's it like…" and here he squirmed. L had a vague inkling of his intentions and chose to save Raito.

"Being with another man?" he interrupted.

"Yeah," Raito snorted, "that."

"Dunno," L mused, "Never tried it. Though Mello and Near were quite happy for a while."

"Really?" was L's only clue that Raito wanted him to elaborate.

"Oh yes," L clarified gladly, "They did everything together. I suppose they knew each other far longer than we have." The mini-death was well aware that he was delving into Near's dirty laundry, but Near was dead and Raito was curious. "Mello became Kira when he was only ten years old. He was a very intelligent child, if a bit selfish. He'd taken to beating smaller children and stealing from people purely for attention. He had a tragic childhood, Near said."

"How?" Raito asked with curiosity cloaked in impatience.

"His father died in the Thirty Years' War and his mother overdosed on arsenic," L mentioned, not wanting to go into detail. "Anyway, he was supposed to be stabbed to death by a drunkard one night, but ended up crushing him with a wine barrel. So Near was stuck with him for a few thousand years."

"Interesting," Raito grumbled.

"Yes…"

"So why do you hate him so much? Mello, I mean," Raito asked, veering dangerously off track. L could deal with it, though, as long as the conversation suited Raito.

"He used Near. Manipulated his feelings. It started when he found a gang in Los Angeles. Near and Mello had been close as ever, and then Mello started disappearing in the middle of the night."

Raito nodded, if a bit guiltily, "You think he found someone else?"

"Yes," L mused, "though Near never knew for certain."

The brunette sighed, now drawing a circle in the pavement with the toe of one shoe. "So that's why you hate Mikami so much?"

"Partially," L admitted.

"Why do you think Mello ran off?" Raito asked with the curiosity of a six-year-old.

"Well, Near put Mello's safety above all else," L drew out.

"So he stayed intangible in order to keep Mello out of trouble," Raito mused with a thumbnail in his teeth, much in the way L would have.

"Yes. As you can imagine, that wasn't good enough for Mello."

"I can't understand it," Raito growled. L tensed up in case the aforementioned brunette blew his top. "So being close to Near was more important than staying _alive_?"

L puffed a breath of air at his bangs. He should have seen _that_ one coming. "Mello was an impulsive person," he deadpanned, "He lived in the present."

Raito 'hmph'ed at L's side as if he thought Mello's thought process dangerous and ridiculous.

Oh well… L couldn't hold it against him.

The little 'hmph' Raito allowed earlier had turned into something of a chortle. L squinted accusingly at him and wondered what he was laughing at.

"I thought you said you didn't know much about Mello," sneered Raito.

L blinked, confused. Well, apparently he knew more than he gave himself credit for.

"So," Raito continued, leaning forward in his seat, phone still to one ear, "You want us to be like Mello and Near, but minus the cheating and death?"

"Better than Mello and Near," L clarified slowly.

The bench became very silent after that. Raito had reverted to running his fingers along his cell-phone and avoiding eye contact. L had drawn his knees further into his chest and rocked back and forth on the bench.

"So," Raito started up again, less angry, but still shy and in annoyance of being so, "How far would you… want to go?"

How far indeed…

"Only as far as you'll let me," L murmured, trying to ease Raito into the idea. Once again, he did _not_ want to scare Raito off. He ventured a searching glance at Raito's face. Much to L's unsaid delight, the corners of the mortal's ears were growing redder and redder. If L wasn't mistaken, he thought he saw the genesis of a blush creeping across the bridge of Raito's nose.

L had a sudden curious thought. He kept in mind that this thought of his could send Raito flying into a fit. Cautiously, he approached Raito with his curiosity. "If you don't mind my asking, how can you be so open and comical with Mikami, but everything I say or do sets you off?"

"…Sets me off?" Raito questioned with an eyebrow quirked.

"Yes," L mused, "Either you yell or you don't talk at all."

Raito took a deep breath and fiddled with the buttons on his phone. "Like when?"

"Now, for example," L offered. Before Raito could attack him, though, he elaborated. "You could joke and tease with Mikami about dates, food, and whatever else, yet when I suggest that I might harbor feelings for you, the atmosphere gets rather stuffy and oppressive. Why is this, do you think?"

During L's monologue, Raito had stopped fooling with his phone. L waited calmly, his own eyes averted to the mortal's beloved concrete.

"I don't… really know."

L thought that Raito _knew_ quite well. Something was keeping him from disclosing it. He'd learned not to push the brunette into a corner though. The reply suited him fine.

Hastily, as if the last question had aggravated him somehow, Raito glanced at his phone and announced primly that only a half hour had gone past. To which, L had replied, "Any other burning questions?"

"Not right now," warned Raito.

L let it slide.

----

Oh, that was horrible.

Horrible, horrible, horrible.

Raito felt as if something had fossilized in his stomach. He should _not_ have started that talk. He made a complete idiot of himself. Ryuzaki acted so calm and articulate, and then there was Raito, fumbling for words and raising his voice when it needn't have been raised. He was an emotional wreck and Ryuzaki knew it.

Raito was in dire need of something to take his mind off of his mistakes for at least another hour. He wandered back out onto the street where their argument had begun. He thought he saw an appliance store somewhere around there and wondered vaguely if they sold cameras.

As he speed-walked down the sidewalk, he couldn't help but notice Ryuzaki's steady pace at his heels. Damn thing followed him everywhere. Why couldn't Ryuzaki just leave him alone?

Raito darted into a bookstore and leaned up against a shelf in the far corner of the shop.

He buried his face in his hands and breathed deeply the scent of bleached paper and sandalwood incense.

Massaging his eyes as he tended to do during periods of high stress, Raito tried to think coherently. This wasn't supposed to happen. Where had Raito's self-control gone? He wasn't supposed to get angry at Ryuzaki. None of this was Ryuzaki's fault.

Raito could only blame himself for being, as Panda-Boy said, terribly impulsive.

He could tell that the aforementioned psychopomp was writhing where he stood, debating with himself on whether or not to ask him if he was alright. Damn Ryuzaki and his consideration! He knew exactly what Raito couldn't stand and he purposely stayed away from it!

And here Raito was, throwing a fit, considerate to no one but himself. To top that off, he'd probably captured the attention of everyone in the store.

Dammit!

This was _not _a good day.

He forced himself to calm down. After all, Kira wasn't this fickle. Kira didn't suffer mood swings. Kira was calm, poised, and confident.

Raito took a few deep breaths, closing his eyes and shaking his hands out to clear his mind.

Okay.

Not thinking about Ryuzaki anymore.

Focusing on how the hell to stay entertained for another hour.

Raito straightened his jacket, plucked a novel silently off of one shelf, and acted as if he'd meant to storm into the building in the first place. Much to his displeasure, his novel was a romance novel.

Well, shit.

He crammed the vile thing back into the dark cavern from whence it came and searched for something a bit more enlightening. Apparently sensing Raito's unease as he often did, Ryuzaki announced that he'd be hovering around the shelf labeled 'philosophy' if he was needed. Raito nodded curtly and marched over to the other side of the shop.

It was at that point in time when it occurred to Raito that his family would be wondering where he was.

He fumbled with his cell-phone and managed to withdraw it from his pocket. He dialed his home number and held his phone to his ear.

Beep…

Beep…

Beep…

Raito rolled his eyes. Of course. His mom had taken Sayu to the mall and Soichiro was still at work. He left a message on the machine, telling all of them exactly where he was (insofar that he'd been invited to Spaceland with a friend and wouldn't be coming home until later).

Then, having a premonition that neither Sayu nor Sachiko would check the machine, Raito dialed his father's work number.

Beep…

Beep…

Bee- "Hello?"

"Hi, Dad. It's Raito."

"Hm? Raito? Do you need something?"

"Uh, no," Raito said with a scratch of the scalp, "I just called to let you know I'll be gone until late."

"…Late?" Soichiro's voice became more ominous in a split second.

"Um… yeah," Raito whined like the horrible liar he was raised to be, "I got invited to Spaceland by a friend from school."

"You didn't ask my permission," Soichiro mumbled, doubtlessly under the impression that Raito's 'friend' was a date. As Raito expected.

He sighed and shook his head. "Dad, I'm in college now. Do I still need your permission for everything?"

Soichiro grumbled at the other end of the line, "No, I suppose not, but it's nice to know that you still care about my opinion, Raito."

"Sorry, Dad," Raito sighed, "I'll ask your permission next time. So… bye."

He honestly expected to end the conversation right there, but his father's voice blared over the speaker. "Hold on, hold on. You and I aren't done talking yet."

"What is it?" Raito asked, mildly and genuinely alarmed.

"I can tell when you're lying, Raito."

Oops.

"What do you mean, Dad?" the brunette asked, wondering what punishment awaited him for sneaking off with his 'boyfriend.'

"Is there something you want to tell me?" Soichiro's voice boomed.

"No, Dad. Nothing," Raito replied defensively. If he was going to play his part right, he was going to act the Fight-the-Power Rebel role all the way.

"You're not lying to me about going out with _friends_ and sneaking off with a date instead?"

As indignantly as he could manage, Raito scoffed a "What, you can't trust me?"

"Raito," Soichiro warned.

"Listen, Dad," Raito barked, "I'm old enough to make my own choices. You can't police me around all the time."

"Raito! How dare you talk to me like that!"

Oh boy. Raito could tell that he had a barrel of fun waiting for him when he got home. Perhaps Ryuzaki's unintentional suggestion of staying at Mikami's house for the night wasn't such a bad idea…

Oh, brilliant.

"You know what, Dad?" Raito yelled, conscious and uncaring that he was in a bookstore, "I'm not your little boy anymore. You can't tell me what to do! If I'm going on a date, then you can't stop me!"

He'd attracted the attention of an older woman with thin glasses. She goggled rudely at him and scowled. Raito, however, sneered at the fact that she had her business nametag on upside down.

"Raito! I swear! What happened to you? You were such a good kid until _that_ happened! Sometimes I wonder if Schizophrenia's the only thing that's gotten to you!"

Ah. Now here was something for him to build on…

"Are you saying there's something _wrong _with me now?" Raito exclaimed.

"Of course not! You're only disobeying your father's orders, lying to your family, and fantasizing about _nonexistent human beings_! No, Raito, _of course_ nothing's wrong with you!"

Wow. Raito didn't think it was possible for the old man to get so angry… Still, he could work with Soichiro's outspoken emotions.

He laughed into the receiver. "You know what? Fine. I _am _going on a date. See if I come home afterward, _Dad._ Good-bye!"

Raito triumphantly hung up and clicked his heels gleefully on the polished wooden floor.

His raised voice had attracted more unwanted attention. Eyes peered at him from behind thin-rimmed glasses and Ryuzaki decided to poke his head furtively around the corner. Raito turned his head hotly at the lady with the glasses. He stared at her down the bridge of his nose and jerked his head upward in a quick nod.

"Dad's a dumbass."

The four-eyed woman nodded slowly, seeming to understand.

Good.

Raito sashayed away then, sweeping past any watchful eye with the grandeur of a mountain on a salt flat. Ryuzaki followed him as usual, itching his foot and glancing casually about. They were on the sidewalk for quite a while. Raito contented himself with window-shopping while Ryuzaki bemusedly performed handstands on the sidewalk.

Raito was in the midst of comparing the prices of two miniature LCD televisions when he felt something wet explode on the curve of his nose. He quirked an eyebrow and sneered accusingly at the sky. The clouds were heavy and dark with rain. Raito knew that his date wouldn't amount to much if the weather got any worse.

Then again, the way he had things planned out, the weather would only help.

----

L would have expected Raito to glare and shake a fist at the oncoming storm. Instead, the brunette grinned and stretched his arms behind his head. L rolled his eyes. Raito was becoming quite the supervillain.

L could only wonder what manner of ill lightning was crackling inside Raito's head.

Judging by his yelling on the phone earlier and the intuition L's eavesdropping had procured, Raito was planning something very morally evil indeed. L knew L liked Raito, and Raito knew L liked Raito.

Yet he was still planning on spending the night in _another man's apartment_. Was this an acceptable practice in the human world or something? L found himself wondering at his sanity.

Raito suddenly hop-stepped away from the display window and marched away from L at an alarming pace. The mini-death, against his better judgment, followed. "We're leaving already?" he groused, not entirely looking forward to the rest of the evening.

"Yes," Raito announced primly, straightening the lapels of his jacket.

"Why?"

"If I'm going to get to the bus stop on time, I have to leave now."

"You have half an hour."

"Precisely."

L's shoulders slumped and he puffed out one corner of his bottom lip. "Just how far away is this bus stop of yours?"

"Oh," Raito sang, "not far."

L rolled his eyes. Of course. He was in Tokyo. Half an hour's walk was by no means a relatively great distance. He continued his relentless dirge at Raito's heels, refusing to make any wry remarks for the duration of his walk.

Lo and behold, halfway through their walk, the weather above their heads began teasing them with spurts of unruly precipitation. L didn't mind getting wet, of course, as it could not be done. Raito, however, was a different matter. L's sudden alarm was subdued by the brunette's cheery greeting of the rain. Raito's shoulders were already dotted with moisture, but he looked happy as he'd ever been.

L could only raise an eyebrow in speculation as to Raito's references concerning his 'plan.' He'd mentioned it earlier, and it had gotten him into a nasty fight. The fight ended well, though, at least in L's opinion, so he was no one to complain.

Finally, the curved steel and Plexiglas bus station wafted into view through the rain-misted air.

Raito grinned at it like it was an old friend of his and went into an unusually mechanical walk. L noticed this. He peered into Raito's eyes on a whim and found what he saw to be very interesting. Raito's eyes were distant and out of focus, functioning on a higher plane of sight. His mind wasn't on the bus stop. He appeared to be thinking very vividly about something.

L let him be; watching out for any pebbles and pitfalls Raito could unknowingly wander into.

By the time he'd reached the street, the brunette's usual swagger-step had resumed and his eyes were sharper than ever. To top that off, he maintained a smirk the size of Okinawa.

L only sighed.

It was at that moment in time that he realized Raito had taken his right hand discreetly out of his pocket.

And snapped.

L gave him a scrutinizing once-over. "What was that for?" he asked.

"Oh, you'll see…" he sighed, very happy with himself.

L eyed him warily, sticking both hands into his jean pockets. "Well I certainly hope you know what you're doing."

"Of course," smirked Raito.

L rolled his eyes. Oh yes. He was going to have the longest night in his life.

No sooner had Raito set foot on the cracking concrete of the sidewalk, on the opposite side of the street, than a familiarly mundane voice reached L's ears. "Ah! Raito-kun!" hollered a flustered, agitated-looking Mikami.

Raito waved a polite hello at him before trotting daintily in his direction. He appeared mindless of the state of his jacket and the dark, muddy water seeping into his pants. Mikami was dressed informally, his coat an apparent second thought, in a black tee-shirt and a pair of loose, ivy-hued, twill pants. There was a decorative bangle shoved curiously over one of his wrists along with a shiny, silver watch.

L bit at his thumb.

Since when did he care what anyone was wearing?

Intrigued, he glanced down at his own attire, tugging listlessly at the hem of his sweater. Perhaps a change in wardrobe would be in order.

Bah.

Who was he kidding? His ensemble was comfortable. That, and he hadn't thought to bring a change of clothes with him when he ventured to the human world on what was supposed to be a short trip.

"Hey," Raito's smile glittered, "I was right on time, wasn't I?"

Mikami scratched the back of his head and laughed amiably, "I suppose, but I wish the weather would have cooperated with our date…"

Raito barked a laugh, then leaned in and whispered, "I like rainy days."

About four feet away, L stood rigidly and clenched his fists. Damn Raito and his teasing… L was only so nice to him, but noooo… No good-natured play for L! He gritted his teeth and forced himself to adhere to the spot.

Tall, Dark, and Geeky swaggered a bit to the left, silently rising to Raito's challenge. Perhaps against his better interests, Mikami ventured, "You'd still want to go on a date with me to Spaceland in the rain?"

"Why not?" chided Raito with a matter-of-fact gesture of the hand.

An approving, disgustingly affectionate grin attached itself to Mikami's face just then, and L resisted the urge to cough up everything he'd eaten in the past week. Thoroughly mortified by Raito's closeness to his arch-nemesis, L brooded with his back-turned, keeping an eye on the stalker waiting just across the street.

He still caught little snippets of their conversation, though.

"You amaze me, you know that?" Mikami's voice…

"I amaze most people," Raito said with an audible shrug.

"You're quite confident for someone your age, aren't you?"

"Hmph."

"I like it."

"I know."

L was on the verge of tearing his hair out. Alas, he was saved by the bus as it came rumbling around the corner. He caught a hastily whispered, "That's our bus," from Mikami and watched as the stalker's posture went rigid with recognition. Lovely. So not only was L going to be stranded on a bus with the man he wanted to strangle, but also the man endangering Raito's life.

As the stalker speed-walked across the street, L followed Mikami and Raito into line. They paid their way onto the bus and chose a seat second from the back. L realized Raito was giving him a good vantage point for sentry duty. The mini-death leapt onto the ridge of the back of the seat, perched almost clumsily on it, and melded halfway into the wall.

This was no easy feat, of course.

Not to mention, it was the second loudest thing L had ever heard (The first being Mello's chocolate-withdrawal-induced fits of rage). The engine was uncomfortably situated directly behind him. The aluminum wall rippled and shook ceaselessly.

L hoped that Raito's 'plan' wouldn't take too long.

Interestingly enough, before the engine roared into action, Raito's stalker had time to discreetly seat himself directly in front of L. This was an interesting development…

L had quite the view of his shoulders and the back of his head, all of which seemed not the slightest bit agitated. Raito seemed in a likewise state of blissful content, hanging rather uncharacteristically about Mikami's shoulders like an expensive and unusually agreeable feather boa. L muttered to himself, subconsciously melting further into the engine.

Stupid Mikami…

The engine died suddenly, prompting a glance out of each window from L. The bus had stopped to let someone on. The mini-death took no pride in discovering that the bus's new occupant looked a lot like Ryuk, minus the wings and the malnutrition. He was a squat, fat, unattractive man. The little Ryuk-esque puff of hair decorating his forehead was hardly a decoration at all. His eyes bugged out of his head and L noticed the distastefully sly grin he had on his face.

The engine guttered and L braced himself for the inevitable blast of noise that was sure to follow.

Instead, he heard the click of a gun.

"Awright ladies and gentlemen, this bus has just been hijacked!"

Oh hell no.

L knew better than to abandon his post, though. There was a rat in this particular bus-jacking.

He focused his gaze forward on Raito and Mikami. As the criminal yelled something like, "Anybody makes a move and I'll blow their goddamn head off," Mikami's shoulders stiffened and he drew Raito closer to himself. L rolled his eyes. Much more than half of him feared for Raito's safety, but the other more obnoxious, possessive point-zero-zero-one percent wanted to pop Mikami's face off for being that close.

The stalker was also tensing up. L could see the hairs at the nape of his neck bristling in a forest of needles. All would-be wrinkles vanished from his coat in the blink of an eye as his shoulders stiffened to the likeness of crucifixion cross.

Interested more in Raito's wellbeing for the moment, L ignored the hijacker stalking the isle with the bus's ever-stretching, corded phone gripped in his grubby paws. The psychopomp crawled across the ceiling and down a pole, casting a wry eye at Raito's expression.

On the outside, the brunette was the incarnate of terror. Eyes wide, muscles stiff, every finger and toe flexed to a point, leaning desperately into Mikami's side. Yet, L knew merely by the flash in Raito's eyes that he had absolutely _everything_ under control. From the bus, to the hijacker, to the rain: Raito was master of all he surveyed. He gave L a quick wink before dramatically recoiling from the pacing criminal.

"…And if you get smart with me or call the cops, I'll kill every single passenger on this bus! You got that?"

L had only caught bits and pieces of his ranted conversation. The hijacker wanted such-and-such amount of money delivered to such-and-such a place or so-and-so died…

Typical.

Despite the creep and crawl of his spine, L reminded himself that Raito was in control of the situation. He had no need to fear for him. Perhaps the stalker should have been the subject of L's fretfulness. He was fidgeting tensely with something tucked into his coat. L knew in a second that it was a firearm.

All things considered, an enclosed metro-bus was nowhere to hold a gunfight.

Suddenly, the hijacker's buggy eyes were focused in Raito's general direction.

L didn't like that.

He stomped over to the brunette in question and alarm bells immediately went off in L's head. Raito visibly shrank into his seat and Mikami was still as a stone.

"Weeeellll! Whad'a we have here?" the hijacker tapped at his thigh with his pistol. His eyes roved over Raito and Mikami in a way that made L's bones creak. "Interrupted you on your little date, did I?" he sneered.

He stood there for another moment, deciding what to do with his newfound discovery. Then, he slapped his pistol on the side of his jeans again and announced, "You know what? I've changed my mind. For every two minutes my money doesn't get here, I'll pick off one of your passengers!"

The foreign agent in the back corner gritted his teeth and frantically fiddled with his coat. L would have done likewise, but with one exception. He would have blown the fucker's head off long before he had a chance to come anywhere near Raito.

Shinigami-man took one last appreciative glance at Raito and his comrade before gleefully twirling his pistol around one finger and turning around. "Who will it be… who will it be…" he whistled. The bus was packed, and every row of passengers his glare passed over visibly swooned and sweated in anxiety.

"Raito," an urgent whisper from behind.

L turned back to see Mikami speaking in a hushed tone. "If he comes after you again, I'll grab his arm and pin it down so he can't shoot. I might not look it, but I'm a black belt in karate. All I need you to do is lay low and I'll-"

"No," hissed a deeper voice from behind, "It's too dangerous. Let me handle this." L blinked several times in rapid succession as he began to realize what Raito's aim had been. Against his morals, he couldn't hold back the impish smile playing across his lips.

Oh, Raito.

_You little devil, you._

"And how do we know we can trust you?" Raito sneered quietly.

The man appeared taken aback, eyes flicking about for any sign of action. "Trust me?" he whispered.

"You could be the hijacker's accomplice," Mikami cut in. "It's a much more common practice than you'd think."

"You… you need proof?" The agent asked desperately, the hijacker's returning form reflected in his eyes. He fumbled with something in his coat and shoved it into the back of Mikami's arm. "There."

Both Raito and Mikami scrutinized the folded leather, which L had come to recognize as an FBI Proof of Identity. The purely evil glitter in Raito's eyes and the excited shaking of his fingers communicated only one thought to L.

Bingo.

Mission accomplished.

Mikami tossed the ID back as Mr. Who-will-it-be came marching distractedly back up the isle. He nodded curtly, silently affirming his trust with the agent. Mr. Agent-stalker gulped in visible relief and clamped his fingers over the invisible weapon in his coat.

The hijacker stopped directly in front of Raito again and grinned, "I've changed my mind again!"

L tensed up on the ceiling. He was starting to wonder if _this_ was part of Raito's plan. It may have been his acting, but Raito looked nothing short of petrified. He stayed silent, not even bothering to plead against the cold, shiny barrel which had suddenly pressed itself to the side of his head.

The look in Mikami's eyes suggested that he was ready to spring against the stalker's better advice. The stalker's gun was halfway pulled out of his coat. L was enraptured.

As soon as the gun was cocked, a plethora of interesting things happened.

Mikami shot two vertical feet out of his chair and lunged downward at the criminal's heels. The stalker grabbed a hold of the hijacker's gunning arm and twisted it behind his head, cramming his pistol into the man's back. Raito fell backward against Mikami's empty seat.

Mostly, L heard a lot of yelling.

The hijacker yanked his arm away from the stalker and gave Mikami a weak, restrained kick. Mikami, as L was surprised to note, had become something of a madman and devoted himself wholly to snapping the man's ankles using leverage. L knew very well that the stalker's gun was a bluff. Granted, a loaded one, but with his hostage squirming so much in a crowded area, he'd never shoot for fear of injuring a civilian.

L sat, dormant, on the ceiling, and glanced wonderingly down at Raito. The brunette had shielded his head with his arms and assumed a defensive stance. Nevertheless, with his back turned to the action, he was laughing his head off.

A breaker of mortifying fear and relief crashed into L. He shook his fists and dug his jagged nails into his palms. His toes tightened around the ridge in the ceiling and he bit down hard on his bottom lip. "_This_ was your big plan?" L harped as loudly as he could.

Raito laughed and laughed and laughed…

The following noise sounded much like this:

"You could have gotten yourself killed!"

Scream! Shout! Clang! Shout!

"Get offa' me, you little- GAH! My foot!"

Scream! Shout! Clang! Yell!

"You're under arrest! You're under arrest!"

"Raito-kun, are you even listening to me?"

Scream! Shout! Crash! Clang!

"Raito-kun!"

And if one had listened a little harder…

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Heh… heh heh heh- HAHAHAHAHA!" gasp- "AHAHAHAHAAAAA"

Hysterical laughter. Absolutely hysterical.

L left Raito to laugh himself silly and returned to quiet observation of the Dynamic Duo and their conquest of Hijacker-man.

Hijacker-man kicked one foot out of Mikami's grip and stumbled forward, lashing out with every extremity. He fired two harmless bullets at the floor, each ricocheting to no-place in particular. The third bullet, however, was shot off during a spasm of the arm, finding an unwilling target in the form of an old woman. L sympathized as she screamed, collapsing into her chair and bleeding profusely from the head.

L could tell by the glossy look in her eyes that she was already gone.

Pity…

Perhaps he'd wave hello to an acquaintance of his in a minute or so. Another psychopomp.

Oblivious to the sudden death, Stalker-man wrenched Hijacker-man's pistol out of his grip and released his hold on Hijacker-man's arm.

Hijacker-man elbowed Stalker-man in the gut and kicked out with his imprisoned leg, jerking Mikami off of his person. L noticed with critical hilarity the way Hijacker-man's foot bent as he scrambled away, brandishing the merits of Mikami's work.

Hijacker-man raced away on his lame foot and rammed into the bus doors yelling, "LET ME OUT, GODDAMMIT!" L wafted outside just in time to see Hijacker-man stumble into the shimmering street, a few raindrops collecting on his peninsula of Ryuk-esque hair…

Before a car swerved and, over the slick asphalt, met his temple squarely with the brunt of its right rear wheel-well.

----

**INTERMISSION!!!ONEELEVEN**

**INTERMISSION!!!ONEELEVEN**

**INTERMISSION!!!ONEELEVEN**

**INTERMISSION!!!ONEELEVEN**

**INTERMISSION!!!ONEELEVEN**

Chibi Raito: Oh come ON! Give your eyes a friggin' break!

Chibi L: Hm? Why are we here already? I swear, we must be standing on at least… twenty more pages worth of words in size twelve Times New Roman font in Microsoft Word.

Chibi Misa: Lotsa' words…

Chibi Raito: This is… kind of embarrassing.

Chibi L: Shall we continue?

Chibi Raito: Why not?

**INTERMISSION!!!ONEELEVEN END:D :D**

**INTERMISSION!!!ONEELEVEN END:D :D**

**INTERMISSION!!!ONEELEVEN END:D :D**

**INTERMISSION!!!ONEELEVEN END:D :D**

**INTERMISSION!!!ONEELEVEN END:D :D**

----

Raito felt that his horrified eyes were the perfect diversions to the wicked smile threatening to traverse the bottom half of his face. He'd left the bus not one minute ago in the protective, possessive wake of one Teru Mikami, only to witness a bolt of lightning shining off of the rain and blood streaming into the gutter. Raito didn't know what satisfied him more: the coldness of Kiichiro Osoreda's pale white hand, the warmth of Mikami's arms, or the awkward ring of Raye Penber's name.

Raye Penber.

Raito could almost laugh at its hilarity, and yet, he could say it all day. Raye Penber.

Raye Penber!

Ray Penber, Raye Penber, Raypenberraypenberraypenber!

Say it fast and it sounded like a foreign condiment!

Raypenberraypenberraypenber!

Raito was a bit shocked that he belonged to the FBI though. Boy, wouldn't the NPA be pissed when they learned who A and W had entrusted with the safety of their country!

Oh, this was just too perfect. Raito's complicated plan was executed so precisely, Raye Penber couldn't possibly have seen through it.

Raito found out that there were many things he could do. He could manipulate anything. He used the clouds to his advantage, imagining a vivid rainstorm before Osoreda's death. The streets would be slick from oil and water; perfect conditions for a car wreck.

Not only that, but Raito had discovered an essential detail that L had forgotten to mention. He, Kira, could do what no shinigami and his Death Note could do.

He could force people to kill other people.

Over the tangle of arms and legs that was Raye, Teru, and Kiichiro, Raito had witnessed Kiichiro's bullet go crashing into an old woman's skull.

She was the same old woman with glasses that Raito had seen in the bookstore. He'd seen her face well enough under those glasses and her upside-down nametag had given him more than one devious idea.

Raito already had an inkling of what he was going to accomplish before then. At that moment, though, he could have basked in his own glory. Raito was, after all, the most intelligent high school graduate in all of Japan.

It occurred to Raito for the first time since the subway incident that he didn't necessarily need both a name and a face to kill. He needed only a face. However, if he didn't want his victim to die instantly, within a split second of his snapping, he needed a name to keep in his head.

He could have gotten rid of Raye in a more expedient manner, but he would have thrown himself to A and W's wolves. If he had snapped at Raye in the subway, as he would have without Ryuzaki's intervention, the man would have dropped dead instantly and Kira would be as a fox in a tree, hounds barking and frothing at the mouth on the dirt beneath him.

"You deserve an Academy Award," Ryuzaki grumbled, obviously agitated as told by the curling of his toes and the worried state of the hems on his sleeves.

Raito wasn't given the option of retort, as he was being hastily pulled away from the scene of the crime by a very aggravated Teru Mikami. The taller man had practically tucked Raito into his coat and stolen him away. The manner in which Raito was pulled against Mikami's side suggested fear and flight on Mikami's part.

Raito was flattered that the older man didn't want him in danger longer than was necessary.

"Wait," an urgent voice called from Raito's blind spot. Teru halted in his procession of possessiveness, and Raito could practically feel the older man's eyes glaring accusingly in search of the culprit. Kira, however, had taken that average, deep voice to heart.

It was Raye Penber's voice.

Rayepenber the French condiment.

"Listen," Raypenber hushed, "I don't want anyone to know about this. I'm on a confidential mission and if the Japanese police discover me, I…"

"Don't worry," commanded Teru, well… commandingly, "We won't tell anyone. I understand."

"Great," Raypenber sighed, "Thanks. Well, I don't want to be around when the police show up, so…"

And nothing more was said. Raito wasn't able to enjoy the silence properly, as he was soon being tugged further away from the bus. He found himself being eased out of Teru's grasp and placed resolutely on the concrete directly facing him. The older man nudged a wisp of Raito's hair out of his eyes with the pad of one thumb and asked, "Are you alright?"

Genuinely surprised by the gesture, Raito maintained, "I'm… I'm fine…"

"Are you hurt?" Teru asked, a bit louder and more hysterical than last time.

"No," Raito regained his composure as far as he deemed necessary for the crisis at hand.

Raito was infinitely surprised when he was pulled into an uncomfortably desperate embrace. Teru's arms encircled him and drew him in so quickly as to force the air out of his chest for a moment. He registered long, thin fingers massaging his shoulders soothingly and the soft press of lips on one corner of his face.

"I'm sorry," he muttered self-consciously, "Raito, I'm so sorry."

Raito scowled against the face nuzzling into his hair. He failed to see why Mikami thought any of this was his fault. Then again, judging from his attack on Osoreda, Raito could infer that Teru wasn't the most rational of people.

"It's… It's alright. I'm alright," Raito muttered, "I know how to deal with situations like that. I know how… My dad's a detective."

Teru would have none of it.

"No," he swore into Raito's hair, "We should never have gotten on that bus…"

"And where would we have gone?" Raito argued, trying to ward Teru away from the brink of an emotional breakdown.

Though Raito knew very well the answer to his question.

"I don't know," Teru evaded expertly, "To a movie… dinner… something like that. I should have offered the instant the rain started…"

"We're both fine," Raito sighed into Teru's shirt, wrapping his arms gingerly around the other man's back.

"I didn't know if the first two bullets connected," ranted Mikami, "and when I saw what the third one did… I couldn't help but wonder if you were still alive…"

"And here I am," hushed Raito. Then he lied, "I was worried about you, too."

"Oh for shame!" cried a distant, wailing voice.

Ah. Raito had forgotten that Ryuzaki even existed…

Curiously, he ventured a muffled, "Shut up, Ryuzaki."

"Hm?" asked Teru, gently pushing Raito away from him in order to look at him. The brunette shrugged under the scrutiny and said, "Nothing. It's nothing."

For a long while, Raito was left only with the sounds of the rain hitting the sidewalk, the wetness in his hair, the horribly sad mellow to Teru's eyes, and the steady whining of Ryuzaki.

The last of which, Raito could do without.

"Let's go."

The brunette blinked a few times, honestly surprised by the randomness of Teru's suggestion. He observed the older man skeptically, wondering what his motives were. His eyes fluttered rapidly from right to left.

Perhaps he was hearing the rising squall of the sirens in the distance.

Hm…

"But we'll be fleeing the scene of a crime," Raito argued as Teru tried to pull him away, "Last time I checked, that was bad."

"Everyone knows who the culprit was," Mikami cut in quickly, "And I don't want to be around when the police get here. They just complicate things."

"Police complicate things?" quoted Raito as a devil's advocate, "I thought you wanted to be a lawyer."

"Prosecuting attorney," Teru corrected hurriedly, "because I want to get things done. Now… I really don't want to get involved with this. I don't want to get _you_ involved in this." The older man looked down on him sadly, his black hair drooping into his eyes, "You've gone through enough trouble for one day."

Raito sighed, defeated. Apparently, a determined Teru Mikami was a force to be reckoned with. He didn't want to seem suspicious, fleeing a crime scene like this, but Raito supposed it was harmless. After all, A and W did not yet know that he could kill using other methods than heart attacks.

"Alright," he conceded.

Teru gave him a conciliatory squeeze of the arm before the two of them unassumingly and simultaneously fled from the sirens.

Raito managed to walk quietly for a few minutes. The rain was still falling, much to his delight. This way, he would have an excuse to further anger his father and stay the night at Teru's. He doubted that, under normal circumstances, Teru would have allowed him to spend the night. If his earlier concern was anything to rule by, the older man was more spurred by Raito than he was by his own welfare.

The rain, combined with Soichiro's unspeakable anger, would suffice as an explanation.

There was always the chance that his father could get desperate enough to send law enforcement to raid the apartment and extract Raito from therein, but Raito doubted his father would make such a rash decision. He'd be giving himself away along with the plans of any higher power he was working for.

"Raito-kun," a drab voice lamented, "I thought you'd like to know this: I'm dreading your thought process as of the present."

Raito cast a secretive glance at Ryuzaki and mouthed, 'Deal with it.'

The psychopomp visibly deflated, as if that was possible with his currently diminutive stature and self-satisfaction. "I suppose it was my optimism that regarded our earlier conversation as _productive_, wasn't it?"

Raito shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. The little bastard just _had_ to bring that up again…

"Forgive me," Ryuzaki pled wryly. When Raito cracked open his eyes, he noticed with distaste that the mini-death was miserably examining the sidewalk and following at a much greater distance than usual.

"Something wrong?" asked Teru. Raito snapped his line of vision back to his not-boyfriend and replied offhandedly that it was nothing, not entirely wanting him to believe it.

If he was going to play his part in this act, he was going to do it completely. Schizo-Raito all the way.

His eyes wandered a bit too noticeably back over his shoulder. There Ryuzaki was, looking about as cheerful as a drowned puppy, dodging cracks in the sidewalk. Try as he might, he couldn't fight off the bashfulness he felt at discarding Ryuzaki in such a way.

He shouldn't have been surprised, though. Ryuzaki was becoming a greater emotional burden each day. Raito was afraid that at any moment, he might start _caring_.

Who was he kidding?

He already had.

Teru flagged down a cab, perhaps frightened by Raito's retrospection that they were being followed. As he filed about in his wallet for cash, he mumbled for the driver to take him to the address of his apartment, only a few blocks away.

The driver nodded and Raito shuffled into the mediocrely kept back seat. Mikami handed the driver his cash beforehand and sidled in after Raito. Ryuzaki, oddly devoid of any devious comments, melted into the front seat beside the unwitting cabby.

The five minutes it took to get to Mikami's apartment were spent in awkward silence, not even Ryuzaki muttering anything small as a syllable.

----

"So, do you want me to drive you home? I have a car."

"No…"

"Why not?"

"Well, could I just… stay the night with you?"

"Raito… please. Let me drive you home. Like I said, you've already gone through enough trouble for one day."

This was _exactly_ what L was afraid of. Not only would he have to ward Mikami away from Raito all night using various supernatural methods of persuasion, but he would also be forced to endure the sweet-talk.

Mikami's fridge would have to serve as collateral until L got his Raito back.

His.

_His,_ goddammit.

He wasn't about to lose Raito to any stick-in-the-mud mortal, voluntarily or otherwise on Raito's part. L wouldn't have it. No more Mr. Nice-guy. He had resolved to bark orders to Raito all night. No more kissing, first of all. Doubtless, Raito would disobey him for the hell of it, but L would resort to drastic measures if the need arose. He would break things. He would flicker lights. He would _haunt_ the entire apartment until Raito knew that _L_ was the boss.

_L _determined what was legal and illegal.

_L _wrote the rules.

"My dad is really angry at me…" Raito whined, making himself sound like an abused child, "so I'd rather not go home tonight."

Mikami's- curse him –demeanor softened somewhat. "You're afraid of your father?"

"Right now, yes," Raito sighed pathetically.

Mikami thought for a moment, closing his eyes and crossing his arms. He heaved a heavy rush of air before conceding to Raito's evil demands. What he didn't know was that with Raito came L.

And with L came impending disaster.

He plotted as he followed Raito and Mikami into the foyer of the mundane, brick apartment complex. The carpets were an average cream color with the usual frequency of coffee stains. The walls were a drab beige and rimmed with adequately carved wood. The stairs creaked, the air was musty, and all in all, L was determined to discover Mikami's apartment to be the most mundane thing he'd ever seen.

When they'd reached the top of the third stair and trudged down the hallway, stopping at a rather bland wooden door, L sharpened his mind in preparation for the longest satire he ever intended to think.

Key in the door… Mikami fiddled with his hair in his free hand. Door unlocked… Raito stared at the floor. Door open, and…

Well.

L was on the verge of giving up and walking off.

As much as he'd love to accuse Mikami's furniture of being generally tasteless, he found himself appreciating the leather and simplicity. The door opened directly into a small living room, complete with huge, wall-encompassing windows and a beautiful view of the street. A slightly curved white leather couch stretched in the lower center of the room, a decent-sized, glossy television screen yawning against the opposite wall. Another prim piece of white leather furniture, being a lounge chair, loafed in a near corner of the room next to a simple steel floor lamp. Potted plants stood just outside the windows, enjoying the weather on the balcony.

To top the affair off, everything rested in meticulously white carpeting.

Everything was WHITE.

White and steel, with a splash of color from the contemporary art pieces stuck everywhere and the rose-finished trim near the base of each wall.

Much to his delight, L found the perfection of Mikami's apartment the most disgusting thing he had ever seen.

"This is nice," hummed Raito appreciatively, absorbing the lighting and interior design.

"Feh," spat L.

"I'm glad you like it," replied Mikami with a slump of relief.

"I love it," Raito announced, genuinely wondering at the state of the neon-white carpeting, "It's so… clean."

"Really? I was afraid it was a bit dirty…"

"Are you kidding?" Raito wandered into what L supposed was the kitchen, "Look at these floors! They're spotless!"

L bit at his thumb. So Raito liked everything clean and orderly, did he? Ah, well, L got the hint that when Mikami mentioned 'dirty,' he wasn't describing his floors.

"Yes," laughed Mikami, "Now stay here for a moment so I can go clean the _rest_ of my house."

Whether or not that was meant to be taken as a racy statement, L kicked mud at it and declared it filthy. The instant Mikami was out of earshot, Raito whirled to face him in the doorway of the kitchen.

"Grow up," he barked with his arms crossed and his shoeless feet tapping impatiently at the wood floor.

"Oh 'grow up,' must I?" L retorted hotly, "I fear it may be _you_ who needs a crash-course in maturity." L wasn't going to go light on him this time. Raito was getting what he had coming to him.

Raito was unprepared for this remark, apparent by the unveiled shock in his eyes. His face began the slow procession to a blush. "Don't tell me what's wrong with me!" he barked, "And don't tell me how to think, either."

"I'm not telling you how to think, Raito." Hah! No suffixes. Eat it, _Raito!_ "I'm telling you how to act. If you're going to hang around with Mikami and _fool around_, there will be consequences."

"I think I can take care of myself, thanks, Mom," Raito sneered, "Besides, you'll just hop out the window for a few hours!" he gestured dramatically with his arms in great, waving arcs toward the window, "But you've tried that before and you _always_ come back!"

"Oh no, Raito," L did it again! "I'm not going to leave. I'm going to stay here, and if either of you tries anything funny, you especially, I will make your evening a hell-on-earth. Understand?"

Raito seemed at a stuttering loss for words. Of course he was. Usually, L never treated him as anything less than an equal, and L was beginning to take guilty pleasure in treating Raito like a child. He made his sadistic goal to turn Kira as submissive as possible. If L's night on Raito's balcony in the rain was anything to rule by, the guilt trick was the loose stone in the brunette's fortress.

"I'm not going to try anything funny," Raito defended. Well wasn't this odd? Raito never defended himself passively. He always threw another insult without care for its landing. L's devilish plot of absolute surrender was already wavering on its foundations. Unwilling to give up that easily or fall into what could possibly have been a trap, L fired back, "You'd better not. I am not to be pushed around, as you have done lately. I am not to be trifled with. When I say no funny business, I mean it."

"I just want to sleep in peace. You know I couldn't have gotten a good night's sleep with my dad yelling at me," Raito reasoned.

"And whose fault is that?" L retorted.

Raito averted his eyes and sulked. L wouldn't be fooled that easily. He'd heard the whole argument over the phone, including the part where Raito _intentionally_ made his father angry.

"I need this, Ryuzaki," he sighed, finally.

L's eyes nearly bugged straight out of their sockets. Needed _what_?

"Being a rebel will justify my reasons for keeping to myself all the time. I need more evidence that I'm just a normal teenager, not Kira."

L knew that. What he couldn't figure out was why Raito was willing to go to such lengths to prove his innocence. "Won't your father worry about your sudden personality change?" L inquired with a thumb to his teeth.

Raito clicked his tongue. "No. I've been gone a lot, saying I'm 'with friends.' I've always spent time alone in my room, too. He never knew until now that I might have been doing something other than studying."

"Hm," hummed L irrelevantly, "That doesn't change the fact that I don't want you getting too close to Mikami."

"But…" Raito sighed, "If I don't, I'm doing him an injustice-"

"You've done him enough injustice by using him in the first place," L stated resolutely.

Upon hearing this, Raito was struck down. "I'm not… I just…" he suddenly knotted a hand in his hair and whined, "Why do you have to do this?"

Angry at being put on the spot again.

L rolled his eyes. There was no answer to that question, easy or not. Even if there were, L knew from experience that Raito wouldn't have it.

"You aren't justice, no matter how much you may think you are," L muttered, "And you very well know that there is more injustice to be had by the unfair treatment of _certain_ persons, the names of which I hope I needn't remind you."

"You jealous son of a bitch!" Raito hissed.

L was getting angry again. To emphasize this, he straightened from his slouch, squared his shoulders, and curled his fingers around his hips. "Is it just me," he argued, "or have we gone through this _many_ times before?"

Raito growled and worried the belt-loops on his jeans.

L began to pace around the living room carpet. What if he'd been misreading Raito's obscure, scrawled, thrown-about signs? What if he'd misinterpreted Raito's feelings? He'd seen a glimmer of hope today and the day when Raito had walked home from his first date. Was it the wrong kind of glimmer?

Was it L's optimism?

Did Raito have absolutely _no _feelings for him at all?

"Raito-kun," L lamented, slipping back into respectful terms of endearment, "If you hate me, just tell me." He stopped pacing and gave the brunette what he imagined to be the most miserable double-o in the history of the human world. Raito was going to say, 'Duh!' of course. L had been such a fool for hoping.

Raito, in all his infernal hesitation, twitched a finger and remained silent.

Huh! Postponing the inevitable, was he? Perhaps he wouldn't say 'no' after all. He'd say something like, 'I want to be friends.' Raito didn't want the mini-death to fly off, leaving him to _die_ after all. "What's wrong?" L taunted, "Can't tell me? Can't say to my face what you're thinking in your head? I'm ugly, I'm stupid, I say all the wrong things, I wear no shoes, my hair is dirty, or how about insulting me for existing? Believe you me, it's caused _me_ more problems than it has _you_."

"Ryuzaki," Raito sighed painfully, trying to keep his dignity through fleeting attempts at eye-contact, "I don't hate you…"

"Of course not," L mocked, "because if you hated me, I'd disappear. If I disappear, you die."

Halfway through his sentence, L realized what he was doing and he flowed with it. It had been his unconscious aim to make Raito as angry as possible. Raito's true colors flew like a flag when his emotions came through.

Raito mumbled over a bitten bottom lip, "I'm trying to-"

"Try not. Do," L mimicked in a furiously cryptic voice a line Yoda would have found familiar.

"Don't push it, Ryuzaki," Raito barked. L could tell by the fire in his eyes and the sudden burst of confidence that if L had been human, the brunette would have punched him.

"Tell me how much you hate me, Raito," L hissed, spreading his arms and curling his fingers, "Tell me so I can let you go."

Let him go? Who was L kidding? He was going to be hopelessly beached on the desolate shores of romance. At least if he was certain that Raito hated every bone in his body, he could give up and rot in peace.

"Ryuzaki," Raito hissed, voice low, "I don't hate you!"

"Raito, why do you have to do this to me?" L wailed through gritted teeth, yanking violently at his hair. "Try as I might, I cannot read your mind! Tell me straight out! What do you think of me?"

"I can't say it!" Raito lamented, nails digging into the sides of his face. "I can't!"

"Say it! You hate me, you always have, and you want me to leave you alone!"

"I can't!"

"You _will_!"

"I can't say it, Ryuzaki! I won't!"

"And why not?"

"I can't," Raito cried for the umpteenth time. Much to L's horror and intrigue, a shake had found its way into the brunette's voice. He'd dug his palms into the contours of his eyes and shuddered. A slow, guttering breath, "I just can't."

Without much warning, Raito retreated into the kitchen, found himself an alcove between one counter and another, and didn't come back.

----

Kira didn't cry.

Crying was for women and boys who stayed home. Tears weren't for men. Soichiro never cried. Teru never cried.

Raito never cried.

When he felt that telltale sting spreading from the bridge of his nose and seeping into his eyes, Raito panicked.

Because men didn't cry.

Especially not over _this_.

He never felt so much as a pinch behind his eyes when anyone else yelled at him. Granted, he hadn't been yelled at many times. Notwithstanding, he'd desensitized himself with sad movies, the occasional inappropriate thing in the strictest available class, and once in a while, a fight with his father.

Nothing made him cry.

Nothing.

He was angry and confused. Upset. He knew that Ryuzaki should _not _have brought any form of guilt, and yet he did it on a regular basis. When Soichiro ranted over the phone, Raito had felt nothing short of smug. If Teru ever raised his voice, Raito was certain he wouldn't care.

And then there was Ryuzaki, who made Raito want to find a closet and never come out.

Raito didn't _hate_ him, but Ryuzaki seemed certain that this wasn't the case. He said he wanted Raito to hate him so he could 'let him go.'

What also scared the living shit out of Raito was the fact that this statement made him uneasy. It wasn't because of the 'I leave you and you die,' part of the bargain that had him spooked, either. Raito knew very well what was making his skin crawl.

He didn't like it.

It _mortified_ him.

When his girlfriends decided he was expendable, or vise-versa, the rejecting party had merely to say, 'We're done,' and so it was. Raito was sure that a breakup with Mikami would do no measurable damage on his nerves.

When Ryuzaki hinted toward disappearance, the brunette had a panic attack.

Raito leaned his back against the side of the counter and tried to force away the tightness in his lungs.

It shouldn't have been there, and he was angry at it for creeping in. The spasmodic tremors in his hands were completely unwelcome. He dug his nails through the fabric of his jeans and into his thighs.

He managed a scornful laugh. What a sight he must've been. If Mikami were to walk in right then, Raito would have died on the spot. His eyes were probably red and puffy, his arms and legs were shaking like maracas, his hair was a mess, and he couldn't even _breathe_ right!

All because of something stupid Ryuzaki said!

It wasn't _right_!

_It wasn't right!_

Now those goddamn tears were coming again! Raito could feel them bleeding from the corners of his eyes. He buried his face in the crooks of his elbows, pressed his back into the counter with the soles of his feet, and bit down on his tongue until his eyes dried up again.

Raito had his pride. He reasoned with himself that the mini-death was no one to be concerned about. He was blowing everything Ryuzaki said out of proportion.

Raito and Ryuzaki were both angry. Both of them said stupid things when they were angry. All he had to do was swallow his shame and wait until Ryuzaki calmed down. Despite how deeply the mini-death felt about Raito, he would cool off eventually and Raito would be in control again.

He pushed off of the counter with his arm, rolling his shoulders once he was off of the floor. Raito casually swept the dust off of his pants, sniffled his first and only time that night to clear his nose, and examined his face in the reflective surface of Mikami's microwave door. He squinted, trying to make out the redness of his eyes, and then decided that it wasn't important.

Raito raised his head up, standing straight and proud, and plotted his gait with mechanical efficiency. He could sense Ryuzaki lurking just around the corner of the doorframe and he wasn't about to let himself appear stricken. He blew past Ryuzaki without a word. Raito felt the skin on the nape of his neck rise stiffly and he knew that Ryuzaki's eyes were tracking him across the carpet.

Raito kept his eyes carefully focused on the wall in front of him.

Ryuzaki never said a word.

The brunette ran a hand along the leather sofa as casually as he could before deeming it suitable for his lounging pleasure. He flopped onto it and pretended that no notable events had recently occurred.

A tall, dark, silent shadow morphed from the part of the apartment Raito hadn't been shown.

Raito watched from the boundaries of his peripheral vision as Teru gravely made his way across the room. The steady rhythm of his feet on the carpet ceased directly over Raito's shoulder. After a moment of tense silence, Teru asked, "Is something wrong?"

"No," replied Raito without a moment's hesitation.

Silence.

Teru shuffled his feet and Raito wondered if he seemed too far off for the other man to find believable.

"I heard you yelling," the tall shadow murmured quietly, almost in the manner a tamer spoke to a tiger. Raito feigned dispassion as he yawned, "Just an old acquaintance of mine. We had an argument," and he added, "over the phone," for safety.

"Sounded like a big argument," Teru grumbled as he settled into the opposite side of the couch.

Raito dismissed the idea with a flick of the hand. He wondered how much Teru had heard and understood, but he kept his curiosity to himself.

Interestingly, the other man delved into his personal life and reflected, "You make enemies quickly, don't you?"

Raito's response to this was to gaze incredulously at Teru and blink several times in rapid succession. "Not usually, no," he retorted, having nothing better to say, "I just keep in better touch with my enemies, I guess."

"Enemies," barked Ryuzaki, fiery mood still alight.

Raito ignored him.

"I see," Teru mused. "Am I allowed to ask about this person to whom you were speaking?"

Ah ha. So he _did_ understand what Raito and Ryuzaki had been talking about. The brunette could easily have grinned and waved a haughty hand, saying, 'just an old boyfriend,' or 'we broke up years ago,' but Ryuzaki would have gotten the wrong idea.

Oddly, the possibility made his spine prickle.

In lieu of an explanation, Raito ventured, "It's a sore subject."

"I see," said Teru.

Ryuzaki lurked unhappily in the corner.

"So…" Teru saved Raito from having to explain further, "Do you watch football?"

Raito replied that he did, though he didn't follow the sport. He didn't watch much television anyway, and when he did, he was watching the news, tennis, or soap operas.

Football was an admirable sport, though, and Raito knew enough about it to retain interest.

Though, he couldn't understand for the life of him why Americans called it 'soccer.'

Teru's impressive television flickered on, displaying a range of color far wider than the one Raito took for granted on his own set. A thought occurred to him then, and he needed as many random thoughts as he could wrap his arms around in order to block out the suppressive atmosphere that was Ryuzaki. "How can you afford all of this stuff?"

Teru blinked at him, then admitted, "I don't have much else to spend my money on."

"You sure you don't have rich parents?" Raito kidded with an impish grin.

Old Fluff-and-Feathers did as Ryuzaki described him to do, puffing out all of his notable features in defiance.

Gah! There he went, bringing the fuming, moping mini-death back to mind…

"Like I said! I have nothing else to spend my money on!" Teru dragged Raito out of his reverie with an indignant snort. "And if you must know," he sulked, "My family doesn't believe in financial help."

Raito surrendered with a wave of both hands and fell back into a silent mood. Having Teru there, though, commenting on certain kicks and goal attempts, did more than enough to buffer Raito's spirits. He wasn't about to slip into a depression just yet.

"Don't get too comfortable," Ryuzaki warned from behind, voice effectively resonating about the room. Raito breathed a puff of listless air into the room and sank in his seat.

Raito predicted that the next few hours of his life would be spent without incident.

Wrong.

Ryuzaki had not been lying when he said he was going to mold Raito's night into a hell-on-earth.

Teru's arm had slithered halfway around Raito's shoulders when suddenly, the floor lamp near the lounge chair was mysteriously extinguished. Teru muttered at the empty room and cast a leery eye in the lamp's direction. Raito suggested that the light bulb burnt out.

The second incident, however, was not as easily remedied. Raito and Teru had been engaged in an enrapturing conversation about the Freshman Fifteen. Apparently, their faces had gotten too close together and- "What on earth was that?" Teru yelped, freezing in his spot when something from the unexplored section of the apartment crashed and shattered.

Raito shrugged his shoulders as the agitated older man crept out of his seat and slunk toward the door. He disappeared for a time, during which Ryuzaki morphed through the wall behind the television and 'hmph'ed to himself. His raccoon eyes flickered to meet Raito's in a flash and the brunette cursed himself for looking down as he did.

Teru thundered into the room then. "I can't understand it," he muttered, "That was my favorite vase…"

Wisely, Raito remarked, "Maybe our closeness is making certain restless spirits _angstier_ than usual…"

"You think?" Teru snorted in wry humor.

"Why not?" suggested the brunette with a shrug of the shoulders.

"You believe in ghosts?" Teru grinned as a lion with a mouse trapped in its claws.

Raito played the part of the unwillingly superstitious teenager. "No," he denied as he twirled a lock of auburn hair in his fingertips.

This secretive remark of Raito's summoned Teru's unlikely library of horror films. Raito marveled at the haphazard rainbow of DVD spines lining the prim little hutch against the wall.

He picked one, an obscure title, and pulled it out of line with a well-placed index finger.

Several times during said obscure film, Raito subconsciously drifted toward Teru, or vise-versa depending on the scene, and something miraculously supernatural would occur. Once, Ryuzaki announced to the air that he was going to start a fire with Teru's toaster and Raito recoiled, pretending to have an itch. Another incident involved the mysterious disappearance of the remote control, which Teru then found to be in said toaster, a silent threat of the house fire Ryuzaki was not at loath to start. The third and most notable time (though these incidents weren't merely limited to three) found the fan on Mikami's ceiling rotating without provocation.

Teru noticed this.

"Alright," he announced loudly to no one in particular, "I'm beginning to consider what you said earlier."

"About the restless spirits?" Raito grinned.

"Yes," Teru admitted dryly, eyes focused grimly on the ceiling fan, which quietly maintained its relentless, moderately-paced spin. "I don't believe in ghosts, but this is much too strange to be coincidental." He then eyed Raito queerly and asked, "Do you think we should call someone?"

"I doubt that would do anything helpful," Raito reasoned in all truth. He could clearly see Ryuzaki kicking bemusedly at every other fan blade as it moseyed by.

"What do you think would help?"

"All honesty?"

"Yes."

"Sit over there."

Teru shuffled experimentally onto the other side of the couch.

Whirr. Whirr. Whirrr… Whirrrrrr…

Bam.

Stopped.

Ryuzaki had done a peculiar victory dance with his heels before halting the fan with one toe. Raito gave him the evil eye, attempting to offset his unintentional display of eye-averting surrender earlier. Ryuzaki met his gaze with a passive eye as cold and sharp as a plane of glass.

"I think it worked," muttered Teru pointedly.

"Yeah," Raito deadpanned without relenting to Ryuzaki's shadow gaze.

"Does that mean I can't snuggle with you anymore?" Teru whined theatrically.

"Yep," Raito crowed smugly, reaching his arms behind his head in a comfortable yawn. Teru leaned over, coming dangerously close to falling over, just to elbow Raito in the side.

Ryuzaki made a loud noise of discontent and whirled the fan one last time.

"Wow," remarked Teru with his shimmering black eyes focused on the ceiling fan once again. Raito noticed just then that he wasn't wearing his glasses.

Interesting.

Teru agreed not to come anywhere near Raito on the playful terms that he would be doubly molested the next time they met. Raito agreed to Teru's rules, but laid no claim on the magical interference which would undoubtedly happen. Teru quirked an eyebrow and asked whether Raito had strange mind-powers that he was using to keep the older man away. Raito replied with a calm, "Powers? Hah! What powers?"

Their dinner consisted of two microwaved cups of ramen, upon which Raito reflected that Teru must not have been a very good cook. Ryuzaki eyed their food selfishly, and as if having a sudden flashback of insight, whisked himself into the kitchen. Raito hoped Teru wouldn't need anything in that fridge of his.

After his second horror film had run its course, Teru declared that, taking into consideration the nature of recent events, he'd had enough of the supernatural for one night.

They rounded out the night with one of Raito's personal favorite soap operas. It was a rerun, but the brunette found the nostalgia comforting as he recited line after line in his head. Teru, on the other hand, was new to the affair, as became apparent by his relationship with the nearest throw-pillow. He squished it when the main character said, "I'm pregnant, Ichigo!" and especially when she announced, "But the baby's not yours!"

Oh, who could it be, who could it be…

Raito knew that the father was played by the up-and-coming pop-star, Ryuga Hideki.

But he wasn't about to let anyone know.

Interestingly enough, Ryuzaki's matte black eyes were trained on the screen as well. Having doubtlessly spent the refrigerator, he was in search of a new means of entertainment.

At least he wasn't being as annoying anymore. Honestly.

The clock struck eleven.

As if on cue, Raito let his fatigue be known. He yawned and shut his eyes for a few seconds.

"You tired?" Teru ventured with a smile. Raito glanced wearily at him. He noticed by the squint to the other man's stare that his contacts were drying out.

"Yeah," Raito admitted with another yawn, "I should go to bed. I have an appointment with the psych-ward tomorrow."

Teru's eyebrows absorbed any questions he may have had.

"Well, I guess I should be off too," he mentioned, singsong.

The only light shining in the room came from the flickering television. Footsteps which Raito periodically heard on the ceiling had vanished. The sun was down and the streetlights blared. All in all, Raito's fatigue was multiplying with each night-like quality of his environment.

"So," Teru's languid voice drawled, "Do you want to sleep out here or in my room?"

Raito and Ryuzaki shot him a simultaneous dirty look.

Teru laughed and ate his words. "By that, I meant that you'd steal my bed and I'd sleep out here. Whichever works for you."

Out of the courtesy of his soul, Raito refused to take Teru's room from him. That, and he wanted to get to sleep as quickly as possible. The day was catching up to him.

The brunette yawned in earnest this time, reaching a palm up to his mouth. He didn't need to utter a syllable before Teru was up and out of the room with an, "I'll be right back."

Teru's lights cast fading white beams on his carpet as they bent through the open archway. Every once in a while the fleeting shadow of Teru, accomplishing this detail and that, would block the light.

Soon, the figure which reemerged from the archway was not Teru, but a bipedal mound of drooping quilts. It stumbled into the room and muttered laboriously, "This apartment tends to get cold at night because of the windows-" it gestured with a lean to the wall-encompassing panes of glass on the room's far side, "-and I thought you might need these."

Hm. No wonder Raito's feet had been getting so cold.

The blanket-monster had made its way to the side of the couch opposing Raito. It unceremoniously dumped itself onto the couch, sheets of every manner of fabric flailing to and fro. Who should emerge from the mound but a very accomplished-looking Teru Mikami. "I guarantee you'll need all of them," he crowed.

Raito took a gander at the colossal mass of cotton, polyester, linen, wool, and rayon which had been spilled onto his couch.

He goggled.

"Where did these come from?" Raito asked, a bit delirious from the sheer weight of the fabric.

"Well," began Teru with a meek scratch of the head, "I figured you needed them more than I do, so…"

"No," denied Raito.

"'No' what?" asked Teru.

"You're taking them back."

"You don't like my blankets?" whined Teru in mock-agony.

"You'll freeze to death," remarked Raito.

"I'll be fine," the dark-haired man dismissed with a wave of the arm. Before Raito could object, Teru announced that he was drawing the curtains to keep the heat in. He also asked if Raito wanted a change of clothes to sleep in.

Raito replied that no, he was fine in his jeans.

Teru brought him a set of blue, plaid, flannel sleepwear anyway.

Out of courtesy, mind you, and not the fact that his goose bumps were suddenly testifying to the brunt of the temperature, Raito retreated into the bathroom and changed into Teru's pajamas. Raito could wrap his fists in the leftover sleeve material as well as trip over the folds of his pajama pants, but he figured loose pajamas were more comfortable anyway. That, and Teru had some _mighty_ luxurious laundry detergent.

He pussyfooted out of the bathroom, working the secrets to remaining un-tripped in loose clothing. Teru was waiting for him in the living room.

Raito sighed and slumped, defeated by Teru's innocent good nature.

The brunette had been gone all of two minutes and he already had a lavishly made bed waiting for him in the living room. Comfortable, downy pillows replaced the overstuffed throw-pillows and the cushions of the couch were draped in layers of every manner of fluffy-looking cloth known to man.

"You're too nice," Raito deadpanned honestly.

"I try to be," Teru managed a disarming smile while he waited for Raito to test the bed he'd made. Raito did so, crawling experimentally beneath the shell of fabric, day-clothes packed under one arm. He found it to be irresistibly cozy. An overwhelming riptide of languid warmth pulled him beneath the blankets and he refused to come back out. Raito selfishly pulled his quilts up around his face and buried his nose in the four pillows Teru had provided him.

"Comfy?" the older man asked with dry wit.

"Hmm…" Raito drawled coyly, "It could use a little perfume…"

But he was lying. Raito was surrounded in the most heavenly material he'd ever smelled. He would _have _to record Teru's laundry detergent.

"Huh," the older man chortled, "You're out of luck."

"I think I can handle it…" Raito yawned.

Hmm… sandalwood-ish… a little cinnamon… something sweet…

Teru sighed another wistful laugh before striding over to where Raito was curled contently into his nest. Raito glanced up to see his rich, black hair haloed in the light from the archway. Teru's black eyes were soft and clear and his lips curled upward in a light smile. "Can I get a goodnight kiss?" he asked.

Raito's eyes flickered over to Ryuzaki on the ceiling, giving him a glare that said, 'You had BETTER not ruin this!' Ryuzaki only drew his bottom lip out, puffed a sigh of air, and said, "Make it quick."

Honey-brown eyes brought Teru back into focus. He hummed in his throat before turning his head and smiling a smug affirmative.

Teru leaned in and Raito closed his eyes.

"Oh for shame…" muttered Ryuzaki.

Teru's lips were soft and gentle, not pushing toward some ulterior motive. Warm, and comforting. The sensation was gone as soon as it came, though, short as it was sweet. Teru's lips lingered for a wistful moment before he thought better of himself and the heat of his body faded altogether.

Raito cracked open one eye and smirked

"G'night," he mumbled.

"'Night," bid Teru with one last affectionate ruffle of the hair. He walked away slowly, like he wanted to stay, but knew he couldn't. The kiss spoke of that too, but Mikami was conscious of his limits, and Raito respected him for it.

Teru vanished through the archway and all light was suddenly gone from the apartment. The only sound Raito could hear was the steady clicking of the clock on the wall.

And the aggravated sighs of one brooding psychopomp in the shadow of the ceiling fan.

Face half-buried in blankets, Raito curled into himself when he noticed the unnatural frigidity of the air. He dared a gander at Ryuzaki. In the muted luminescence from the curtains, Raito could only make out two gleaming white and black orbs floating in the distance.

He retreated further into his fortress and closed his eyes without a sound.

"Happy, are you?" a dark voice resonated from the gloom.

No answer.

"I hope so," the voice continued, "I hope that pathetic excuse for a kiss made your trip worthwhile."

Raito shut his eyes tighter against the humiliating stab of Ryuzaki's words. He was determined not to let the mini-death win this round. Kira had to be a big boy and stick up for himself.

"And I hope he makes you happy," Ryuzaki sneered darkly through his teeth.

Raito glued his lips shut using mere force of will.

Having waited for a reply and receiving none, Ryuzaki muttered, "Nothing to say, have you? Going to leave me in suspense for another day?"

Raito gave in. "Ryuzaki…"

"I've seen the look on your face all evening. If you find me disgusting, tell me."

Dammit, this again? "Lay off," Raito demanded lowly, "I already told you, I don't hate you."

"Then what _do_ you feel?" Ryuzaki sneered.

Dammit, dammit, goddammit! Raito pulled his blankets over his head in an attempt to drown out any other vocalizations from an angry psychopomp.

He didn't know what he felt! He'd tried to discover that earlier in the day, but his brain couldn't hold onto the concept long enough! In a nutshell, Ryuzaki had told him that he was _very _much in love with him.

Raito had been grappling with the concept of falling in love with a coon-eyed, monkey-toed nonhuman for a long time. He couldn't understand it. There were no fluttery feelings in his chest when he was around Ryuzaki, there were no wistful glances exchanged. There was no touch, no smell, no taste, no _anything_ to Ryuzaki.

He wasn't physically attractive, articulate, or sociable. So why the hell couldn't Raito visualize being without him?

Ryuzaki was just… there.

Perhaps that was what made him so important.

Raito was used to Ryuzaki. He'd become like a second state of consciousness. He was always there, annoying much-needed words out of Raito. He was on constant lookout for anything remotely dangerous and expressed borderline hysterical worry over every single hair on Raito's head.

He cared.

No strings attached.

So why did Raito snap whenever the mini-death mentioned love? Why could he kid around with Teru and not Ryuzaki?

Because Ryuzaki's opinion _mattered_.

That was why.

For some reason mysterious to Raito, no one's words cut deeper. He hated admitting it. Raito loathed thinking so highly of anyone but himself. Perhaps that was the reason he couldn't understand the emotions Ryuzaki left in him.

His pride had become an invisible barrier, meant to keep disgrace out, which instead trapped Raito's freedom of thought within. The brunette recognized it as a weakness and naturally tried to shove it out of his mind.

"You sound awfully thoughtful," Ryuzaki bit from the edge of Raito's consciousness, referring to the silence in the room.

Tired, frustrated, and in desperate need of answers and sleep all at once, the brunette pulled his blankets back past his chin and sighed, "I can't answer your question." His denial was becoming redundant, but Raito could imagine no other method of refusal other than 'I can't.'

Because it was true.

If Raito admitted that he was a jumbled mess of emotions that were _much_ less than hateful, he would be doubly admitting failure and the frailty of his own thoughts. Anything he felt for Ryuzaki was by no means fitting to a man of his divine stature. Spilling his gushy, garbled guts onto Teru's nice, clean carpet was not an option.

Raito _could not_ do it.

Even more humiliating: Raito had no idea how to answer. He knew he didn't hate Ryuzaki, and that was it. It was impossible for him to decipher his own thoughts. It was as if his subconscious had coded them, knowing that Raito was better left in ignorance of their content.

"You can answer me, and you will," Ryuzaki demanded from his spectral shadow on the ceiling.

"No," Raito refused.

"And why not?"

"Because I-" Shit. Here it came, like hell's locomotive, and Raito was powerless to stop it, "I don't know the answer!"

He could sense rather than see Ryuzaki's shoulders slackening and drooping toward gravity.

Raito failed.

He gave up.

He gave way to Ryuzaki's assault and he had dishonored everything he stood for.

His pride was in shambles. Of all the humiliation in his life, Raito had never admitted to ignorance.

Ever.

Raito was number-one in Japan! Each and every year, he had test results to prove it! So why, for the love of God, did he not know how to respond?

_Why couldn't he answer Ryuzaki's goddamn question?_

Amidst all this, Ryuzaki hadn't said another word, yet Raito could feel through the palpable silence that he was no longer at his post. The mini-death had crept along the ceiling, scaled the wall, and landed on the floor. He was considerably closer, though in what direction Raito could not discern, and the brunette could tell by the prickling of all the hairs in his scalp.

The ominous presence that was Ryuzaki lingered just inside Raito's personal space.

A long silence, and then, "I wish I knew what to do with you," Ryuzaki sighed heavily.

Not having anything remotely helpful to say, Raito sank further into his cocoon of blankets and folded his arms against his chest. He waited for what seemed like hours in the stagnant darkness, listening only to the dull roar of nocturnal traffic and the beating of his own heart. He'd been expecting Ryuzaki to ramble on about some detail or another, but the voice never came.

He finally closed his aching eyes and breathed a sleepy sigh, hoping to slip blissfully away from his troubles.

Needless to say, he was jolted back into the awkward world of lucidity when the very troubles he intended to escape wrapped their invisible arms around him.

Literally.

Slim ribbons of amber enclosed vast pools of black when Raito stared, wide-eyed, at the arms which had so suddenly appeared.

Ryuzaki had weightlessly settled himself against Raito's side and currently held his midriff captive.

Weightless…

Raito's eyes narrowed again, sleepily. Ryuzaki may not have been human yet, but he could still influence material things… He was using Raito's quilts as a hug-buffer. Against both Raito's frustration and his morals, a twitching, sneering smile jerked unbecomingly onto the brunette's lips.

He was being embraced by a lovesick cloud of arctic air.

Ryuzaki was tragically depressing.

And hopelessly in love.

Raito accepted the gesture, doing nothing to hinder or encourage it. It occurred to him that Ryuzaki's grip would leave arm-sized impressions in his quilts, but he doubted the mini-death would let himself be caught so easily. He trusted Ryuzaki to find something better to occupy his mind with before Teru came to call.

In summation, he decided against shrugging Ryuzaki off.

Comfortable in his shell of cotton, linen, and mini-death, Raito drifted out of consciousness.

----

Chibi Misa: Congratulations! You've just finished the LONGEZT CHAPTAR EVAR!

Chibi L: Moof!

Chibi Raito: No…

Me: -pant, pant- Is that enough of a chapter for you?? A two-fer if I do say so myself.

Chibi Misa: -squints at forty-story tower of words- It's kinda' like two chapters in one…

Me: Hence the intermission. Thought you guys might need a page break.

Chibi Raito: In any case, pardon the tardiness. Swirl was being an idiot for two months.

Me: Pretty much. That, and I was too busy watching Raito and L have their little 'I R JUZTIS' fight in English! Haw! English voices! L's voice screams, 'I R SMEX!' and Raito's makes me go, 'EEEEEE!' I've heard some complaints about their voices, but who cares what other people think?

Chibi Raito: Scratch that.

Me: Erm, yes. Who cares what other people BESIDES reviewers think?

Chibi L: Review! For cookies and for smacking Swirl on the ass and telling her what a bad girl she is for making you wait.

Me: Meh…

Chibi Misa: Review, review, review!


	12. Young and Invincible

**DS**

**Disclaimer:** If it's mentioned in this chapter and you think you could sue me for owning it, it's somebody else's.

Chibi Misa: Back on schedule, guys!

Chibi L: With all due respect, I still think we're a little late.

Chibi Raito: I guess you're ri- EMMA!

Chibi L: …What?

Chibi Raito: I'm not sure… That was weir- EMMA!

Chibi Misa: …I think it's a sneeze.

Chibi L: That's odd. I wonder if it's contagious.

Chibi Raito: My nose- EMMA! Feels like it's- EMMA! About to explo- EMMA!

Chibi Misa: EMMANUCLEOSIS!

Me: …Wow. My muse is such a great person, she even has a disease named after her. Kudos to her, by the way, for grabbing my shoulders, shaking me, yelling 'WRIIITTTEEEE' and locking me in a box.

Chibi L: I see…

Chibi Raito: EMMA!

Chibi Misa: Here's another chapter for you, slaved over while within the confines of a cardboard box, no less! Read, review, and relax!

**D S 12**

When the warm, fuzzy daylight bled through the curtains and onto the couch that morning, L refused to move. He phased through most of the blankets, getting as close to Raito as he could. He knew that, given the grim difference between himself and the slumbering brunette next to him, this was as close as L was ever going to get.

The mini-death tightened his grip around Raito's waist and closed his eyes. Through force of will, imagination, or a combination of the two, L stretched his realm of consciousness to its limits. He swore he could trace every contour of every lean muscle in Raito's midsection. He swore he could feel the heat radiating from Raito's body and forcing the ice out of his fingers. He swore he could smell past that overpowering detergent scent. It was the sharp, sweet smell of Raito's hair, his sheets, his clothes…

When the mortal stretched his back and sighed sleepily, L was at loath to release him. Much to his delight, Raito seemed at loath to leave. Once he had yawned and reached his arms out, he remained rigid, muscles knotting and flexing, before falling completely limp. Kira decided against getting up. L agreed with him.

Raito sighed heavily, still under the effects of sleep-inertia, and quietly resigned himself to his fate. He didn't attempt to wriggle his way out of L's embrace. He accepted it, as he'd done the night prior, as being a greater evil for which he was no match.

L recognized after two minutes of motionlessness that Raito was going to make no move to speak. This suited L just fine, as he knew that, should Raito say anything, he would be unable to reply.

The mini-death heaved a lost sigh. The light bustle of morning traffic and the warm, yellowish light cast by the curtains was only serving to make his predicament all the more hopeless. The world would be as it would, full of listless activity, indifferent to the ultimate futility of its efforts. Existence would spin itself into blissful oblivion and L would remain, watching it all pass by in the pixels of his computer screen.

L would watch with a thumb to his lips as the undertakers escorted Raito's ebony chariot six feet into the earth. The grass would be neatly mown and the granite grave marker primly polished. It would be visited every day, then every weekend, then every month, and then every year.

After a while, the flowers would stop coming.

L would watch as Raito's tombstone eroded, slowly, details softening over the years until nothing was left but a mound of mossy granite. He would watch as the weeds sprouted and choked the lawn, twisting about every tree and marker. He would watch as the sky turned grey and the word 'Kira' was a set of letters spoken only in a two-paragraph article in someone's history book.

Raito Yagami would be a distant memory.

A dream of a dream.

And L would live forever.

Forever… It was an awfully long time to think about. L's life had already outlasted his memory. Perhaps the Old Man would call it quits once his ideal race either killed itself or died with the universe.

L wondered if he could last so long with Raito gone. If he'd foreseen his imminent attachment to a mortal, he never would have gotten involved.

Who was he kidding?

Of course he would have. L would have seen Raito's face, known the anguish he'd felt trying to kiss it, and been sucked into the mortal's life regardless of consequences.

L wondered if these had been Near's thoughts as he died. He remembered the sad, bottomless look to the other boy's eyes. He remembered Near's cryptic words; words which L could never reverse.

Thoughts he could never change.

L remembered walking beneath the frame of Near's dusty white door and thinking of how the other boy would never allow anything to get so dusty.

L found himself sitting once again in Near's dreary, beige colored room. Only… he wasn't himself. Rather, he sat at the opposite end of the room and watched a conversation between himself and Near.

Near…

Now L remembered. Near had called him one day and asked him to come over to his house. L had been infinitely surprised, as Near never called anyone. As close as he was to his best friend, Near had always preferred being alone.

His tone of voice over the telephone suggested dire urgency, though, so L hadn't bothered to ask questions.

Mello had died.

L remembered that, along with the anxiety in the other boy's usually quiescent voice, there had been an undertone of anger. L had never seen his friend angry before.

When he arrived, though, L saw no anger in Near's eyes. The fury in his voice had been replaced with sadness and acceptance. The confident stride in his step had vanished and he looked at L with something akin to guilt.

'_I'm sorry I yelled,' he'd mentioned somewhat offhandedly._

_L replied that it was perfectly fine. Near was forgiven. At the word 'forgiven,' the white-haired boy had given him the most peculiar and darkly unreadable of looks. He said nothing though, and continued trekking to his room._

_Near sat down in his office-chair and L had been perfectly comfortable on the floor. L asked what Near wished to talk about._

_So it turned out, the unstable mini-death only wished to spill his guts._

'_I was never good enough,' Near had said, 'I knew it.'_

_L dutifully played the part of the best friend and contradicted everything he said with 'That's a LIE!' After the fifth denial of Near's inferiority, L realized that nothing he could say would have mattered._

_Near had made his choice._

'_I respect whatever you choose to do,' L offered, 'Just don't regret it.'_

'_Hah!' Near laughed snidely, 'As if leaving this place is anything to lament.'_

After that, Near had explained through regretful events in his life, many of different natures, with the hope that it would clear his conscience. L listened and offered his opinion when and where it was needed.

Now, in the present, L watched as Near and his past self debated.

"How do you know you're going to the same place he's going?" L had asked out of curiosity.

"I don't know," Near shrugged with a sigh of exasperation, "I just… know." He breathed sadly through his nose and stared at a spot on the wall beyond L's former self. Ex-L tilted his head illogically and hummed.

"Why are you still here, anyway?" Near grumbled irately, "You're the one who thinks it's so boring here."

Ex-L blinked at the force of Near's words and decided that staying quiet was the best response. He waited for the other boy to regroup his thoughts and simmer down. Sure enough, Ex-L only had to wait a moment before Near's rigid shoulders went lax and his fiery eyes sunk downward.

"I yelled again, didn't I?"

"You did," remarked L.

It was quiet then. The muted midday sunlight bled drearily through the dusty, ice-colored curtains and turned much of the room an equally dreary shade of blue. Near's room hadn't usually been that gloomy. Normally there was a pile of dice or a stack of cards somewhere on his desk.

Anything that had once lit up the room had quietly slunk off and faded away.

L remembered how horrible he'd felt. It wasn't a teary, heart-wrenching sort of horror. The feeling was more of a numbness; an emptiness in a section of his heart that had once been brimming with a myriad of things. It bit at L to know that he couldn't convince Near to sway toward another course of action.

Mello was dead, and Near was going down after him.

"It's a funny thing, time travel," Near mentioned with an aching heart, "No matter how many times you go back and try to save the ones you love, nothing changes. All of one's heartfelt efforts merely contribute to an inevitable end result."

Ex-L blinked at him, ringed eyes full of misunderstanding.

Regardless of his friend's lack of comprehension, Near continued to speak. "I suppose it only makes sense, if one were to travel back in time. Actions contribute to actions, and those transfer to other actions. In the end, one finds himself in a web of things he tried to do to prevent the death of another."

Near sighed.

"Only to discover that every preventative measure he took merely contributed to the downfall everything he ever loved."

Both Ls were speechless. He remembered how confused he'd been by Near's insight. Ex-L shuffled around in his seat and felt generally out of place in the room of gloom.

"So then, L," Near deadpanned, "You think you're going anywhere soon?"

Ex-L recognized the snow-haired mini-death's code talk and replied, "I'll try not to. I have a feeling that something… big might happen."

"How do you know?" Near asked innocently.

"I don't know," Ex-L sighed, "I just… know."

Then occurred the event that would forever puzzle L, even after Near's death. His pale, white-haired best friend smiled secretively and said, "I know too."

Ex-L rocked back on the floor and leered distrustfully at Near. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I forgive you, L," Near smiled painfully, "And I'm sorry… for everything."

----

Raito didn't dare say a word.

He didn't dare protest against Ryuzaki's arms around his waist. He didn't dare move away from the pressure against his back.

Something in the way Ryuzaki clung to him suggested that he didn't dare let go.

The mini-death was considerably closer than he had been when Raito went to sleep. His hands were mere centimeters away and Raito could feel the press of each fingertip into his stomach. The contours of Ryuzaki's feet curled around his own and he could feel the ridges in Ryuzaki's face pressed flush against the base of his neck.

Oddly enough, the mini-death didn't feel the least bit cold.

Raito sighed against the fluttering feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had to say something.

"Ryuzaki…" he breathed. Ryuzaki's toes suddenly curled and relaxed. He stirred against the knots in Raito's spine and murmured a "Hm?"

Silence. Raito didn't know exactly what to say, just that the quiet and Ryuzaki's rigidity were bothering him. He knew better than to ask the clingy mess of jeans, sweater, and messy hair to leave. Raito didn't want to hurt his feelings or anything…

And there it was.

Fuck.

The kindergarten sentence.

Raito didn't want to hurt Ryuzaki's _feelings._

The brunette gritted his teeth angrily. How embarrassing… Here he was, Kira, Lord of all he surveyed, and he was hesitant to put a dent in the ego of a lowlife like Ryuzaki. He considered the means by which he'd arrived at his state of nauseating humanity.

Well, he couldn't say that Ryuzaki's possessiveness wasn't flattering. He wasn't like Mikami, who suffocated him in worry after the incident on the bus. The mini-death just wanted to be there, constantly. Raito could have slapped himself in the face for venturing the thought that Ryuzaki's clinginess wasn't entirely obnoxious or unwelcome.

Raito wouldn't allow himself to consider the pressure of the mini-death against him to be heavenly, but for some reason (which he wanted to beat senseless, tie into a burlap bag and throw into the ocean), he tolerated it. After a night of being encircled within the arms of a socially lame-brained zephyr, Raito adjusted to the sensation.

He sighed, quite hopelessly, and invited the earth to swallow him whole.

"What are you thinking about?" Raito ventured in a hesitant whisper.

More thoughtful, oppressive silence.

"You," said Ryuzaki.

Raito closed his eyes and gulped down what the fretful mini-death would have interpreted as an anguished sob. Something about the hopelessness of the atmosphere was seeping into Raito's lungs. He found himself growing heavier and heavier with a depression he couldn't distinguish.

Ryuzaki had, until then, been tense in anticipation of an answer. Receiving none, he quietly wrapped his toes around the ridges in Raito's feet and bent back down to nuzzle the base of his neck lightly.

Try as he might, Raito couldn't find the heart to tell him to stop.

A deep intake of air was all to warn Raito of Ryuzaki's voice. "I don't want to leave you," the mini-death said evenly, as if it were a fact of life.

Raito had no reply. He didn't exactly want Ryuzaki to leave him either, and neither did he want Ryuzaki to know he felt that way.

"You don't have to," the brunette offered, singsong, as a method of averting the oncoming crisis. To this, Ryuzaki replied, "I do," in a very flat, accepting sort of way. Raito's reaction to this was a raise of the eyebrow and an inquisitive, "Why?"

"You'll die," said Ryuzaki.

Thinking rationally, Raito offered, "You're thinking very pessimistically."

"Yes," muttered the mini-death, "Though I see no other outcome."

Raito sneered. Die? Him? Well… there weren't many options for a member of the human race, but… Raito wasn't human. He was Kira. He'd find a way around death. Now that he knew the general workings of the universe, he was confident that he could find an alternative. "Maybe," Raito sighed, thinking honestly that he wasn't going to die, "But I think I can outwit Death any day. I _am_ Death."

Raito's intuition whispered that the sudden pang of ice at the back of his head was one of Ryuzaki's more baleful glares. "You're still a mortal."

"Am not," Raito argued stubbornly.

"You are," stated Ryuzaki, "And there's nothing you can do to change it."

The brunette shrugged a shoulder into the psychopomp's face and scowled, "So what were you hoping to do about it?"

"I'm not sure," the panda-boy mused, "My mood seems to have disintegrated somewhat, and with it, my thoughts."

To this, the brunette shut his eyes and murmured tiredly, "That tends to happen."

"Hm," said Ryuzaki.

Raito didn't feel like the world deserved the blessing of having his gaze set upon it, so he retreated back into his blankets and marveled at how rotten quiet mornings were. Sure, Raito loved thinking. He also loved the silence required for a good, relaxing bout of thought.

But this was just stupid.

He _didn't_ want to consider the precarious situation he was in, he _didn't_ want to sift through the details of Ryuzaki's undying love, he _didn't _want to calculate how long until he woke up one morning to find that the mini-death was no longer a cold cloud of air, he _didn't_ want to think about how close Ryuzaki's lips were to his neck, and he definitely didn't want to consider how _nice_ they might have felt.

A love-nip flashed through his mind's eye and Raito decided immediately thereafter that his authority had gone to hell.

Complications, complications, complications. That was all life was, wasn't it?

Muddled though his mind was with the morbidly depressing thoughts of _possibly_ having a mini-death attach itself to his hip, Raito managed to hear footsteps creaking against the floorboards near the other side of the apartment. Teru was probably up and about, ready to give him a big, wet, mushy kiss on the cheek.

Fantastic.

Just what Raito needed.

More _affection_.

The brunette lay completely still in a riveting imitation of sleep. Sure enough, those footsteps grew closer and stopped where the archway would have been.

Raito didn't know why he hadn't expected it. If the events of the night before were any tribute to Ryuzaki's divine possessiveness, then the tense rigidity of every limb in the mini-death's body should have come as no surprise when he locked a hawk's eye on Teru. Ryuzaki began muttering to himself, detailing several methods of instantaneous death which could occur at any time, God willing, to the sickeningly innocent man. Raito rolled his eyes beneath their lids.

As Ryuzaki barked an irritated "Scram!" at the deaf ears of Mikami, Raito began to wonder for the psychopomp's rationality. Just what was he thinking to accomplish?

Teru, being numb to the mini-death's jeers and jests, sighed wistfully before tip-toeing into the kitchen. As soon as his not-boyfriend was safely out of sight, Raito ventured a pinch at Ryuzaki's arm from beneath the blankets.

A twitch of the mini-death's foot and a pained withdrawal of his arm was all to signal Raito of his triumph. He grinned to himself, satisfied, and settled back into a more comfortable position. Ryuzaki, however, seemed generally at a loss for what to do. Raito's internal victory march slowed when he noticed how waves of genuine alarm were radiating from the mini-death's direction. A moment's hesitation yielded a sensation from Raito's nightmares.

Ryuzaki leaned in and bit down on the back of Raito's neck.

Hard.

The brunette couldn't pacify the yelp which left his lips, nor the instantaneous spasm of his entire body. He held his breath and frantically shoved against the back of the sofa in an attempt to escape, catching one of Ryuzaki's legs along the way. The mini-death held on, persistent though he was, and dug his nails into Raito's shirt.

Jesus H. Christ!

It was just a pinch!

Raito realized halfway into his decision to kick his legs out with all of his might that Teru would undoubtedly find the sudden struggling noise in the living room to be odd. Though he couldn't ignore the piercing feeling of Ryuzaki's fangs and claws, he tried his best to fight with as little movement as possible. Raito twisted onto his back in an attempt to wrench the mini-death's teeth out of his neck, but to no avail. Ryuzaki melted through the couch cushions and hung on like a fish hook.

After failing two other attempts to pry him off, Raito gave in to necessity and muttered, "Get off."

It took Ryuzaki a few seconds to react, but the stabbing feeling of teeth and nails vanished. Raito rolled off of the couch, dragging half a ton of blankets down with him, and lay with his back to the floor. The brunette pawed at the back of his neck painfully and winced when he felt how tender it was. Experimentally, he lifted his shirt to the level of his ribs and examined the mini-death's handiwork. Red streaks marked the grip Ryuzaki had through his shirt.

Gritting his teeth angrily, Raito glared up at the mini-death. What a bastard! It was just a fucking _pinch_! And there the idiot was, sitting there with those dumb eyes, hair and jeans all messed up, looking for all the world like he had _no idea_ what just happened.

"What the fuck was that for?" Raito hissed under his breath.

Ryuzaki blinked his dinner plate eyes in stupid confusion and stared at his arm. "You… pinched me," he managed, trailing off mid-sentence.

Yes, _AND?_ Why the hell did he have to _bite_ him, for fuck's sake? "You bit me!" Raito shrieked in a whisper.

"Yes… I suppose I did," Ryuzaki remarked.

"WHY?" hissed Raito.

The mini-death adopted his thinking pose, perched on his toes with his knees drawn into his chest. He slipped his thumbnail between his teeth and gnawed. After that, he raised his free hand into the air and said, "It's red."

Raito quirked an eyebrow and located the spot where he'd pinched Ryuzaki. He scoffed, "That's supposed to happen, dumbass!"

"It is…" murmured Ryuzaki, drawing his arm into his line of sight and looking it over and over.

While Ryuzaki reflected on the state of his poor little arm, Raito decided to make his complaints quietly known. "How red do you think my neck is?" he spat, jabbing a finger at the offending area.

The mini-death didn't reply. He merely crouched in his curl of perpetual thought and regarded that same spot on his arm as if perplexed by its existence. Raito watched this procession of events in exasperation, trying in vain to cool his nerves down. The dull throb in his ribs and down his spine was difficult to ignore.

"Raito-kun," Ryuzaki grumbled halfheartedly, "This is bad…"

Raito squinted balefully at him and growled, "Why?"

Yet, all Ryuzaki would offer him was, "This is bad, Raito-kun, this is bad…"

----

This was bad.

This was not supposed to happen. It was against the rules.

When Raito pinched him, L's initial reaction had been anger. After a split second of consideration, however, it donned on him that Raito was _not supposed to be able to do that._ He was _not_ supposed to be able to intentionally hurt L. When he raised his hand with the intention of bothering the mini-death, his fingers should have connected with _nothing_. Nothing but the blanket. The sheet should have gone straight through L and all Raito should have gotten for his trouble was a cold sting.

No.

And then, L had to experiment. Curiously, he lashed out at Raito and bit him with the purpose of causing him pain.

It worked.

Raito was angry, Raito had kicked him and elbowed him too many times to count, and now both he and L had welts.

This was bad.

Not supposed to happen.

Against the rules.

In his stunned surprise, L had forgotten how to let go of Raito.

Forgotten how. The common sense of it all just flew happily away.

In an attempt to save Raito's neck from being torn apart, he tightened his hold around the brunette's midsection to keep him from jerking around and hoped for his confounded memory to float back to him.

When Raito finally stopped fighting him and gave him time to think, L let him go.

Then there was the anger.

The whispered shouts.

The resentment.

L couldn't blame him. It must've hurt. Still, he couldn't understand why the sudden change had occurred. Perhaps this was another step in becoming human. Step two it was, directly after becoming addicted to food. Maybe. L didn't know for sure. He heard that becoming human was achieved in a flash. One minute, a psychopomp was immune to all physical things, and the next he was dependant on food, warmth, and people.

Perhaps the process was more complicated than L imagined.

At that instant, the Mortal-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named tentatively pussyfooted into the living room. He smiled in disgusting radiance and greeted, "Good morning."

Raito blinked once, then drew a quilt about his shoulders and offered a subtly panicked, "Morning."

"How did you sleep last night?"

"Pretty well," Raito offered distractedly, "Your blankets work wonders."

The sickeningly innocent nerd's smile broadened with a smug, "I know."

In an attempt to appear normal and calm his nerves, Raito asked, "So how was _your_ night?"

"Well…" Teru drew out, "It's a good thing my room isn't as cold as the living room." He would say nothing more.

As Raito was left to roll his eyes and fidget, L realized just how unnerved he was. Raito Yagami didn't fidget. Chances were that he wanted to race to the nearest mirror and assess the damage done to his neck. Hauling his good intentions around like a lead weight, L oozed into the kitchen and knocked a pan onto the floor.

The Mortal-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named yelped, "I'll be right back!"

"I'll be in the bathroom," Raito shouted back and L wafted back through the wall with the intention of following him. He emerged just in time to see a mop of brunette hair drowned in blankets and oversized pajamas flop through a doorway at the end of the hall. L dutifully floated after him, taking time to consider what few doorways lay within the hall. He came to the bathroom door and, quietly and courteously, knocked his knuckles once against the door.

He didn't need a meek 'may I come in' or a humble 'excuse me.' Raito already knew exactly who was rapping and tapping at his chamber door and, unlike Poe, was probably hell-bent on strangling the offending raven to death. "Get your ass in here," he snarled.

L whistled to himself, thoroughly convinced that he was going to have the most thrillingly horrible time of his life, and poked his head through the door. There Raito was, hand-mirror between his fingers, sweeping the hair away from his neck and goggling in the wall-mirror at the replica of Mars which now glowed happily from his back.

"Oh dear me," said L.

He soon found himself on the receiving end of a glare that would have melted steel. The mini-death quickly jabbed a thumb between his teeth and nibbled. Raito had nothing to offer him but that flat, low glare and a noisy rhythm of infuriated breaths.

"I apologize?" L stated experimentally, walking into the room and waiting on the tile floor.

"This-" Raito jabbed a nail at Jupiter's Red Spot- "is not okay."

"I-" L muttered gravely- "am terribly sorry."

"You-" the mortal sneered and gritted his teeth- "are a sonofabitch."

L wanted to move on and explain to Raito his reasons for being such a sonofabitch. He inclined his head and scratched one foot with the toes of the other, "Yes. I know."

"I'm tying you into a very punchable burlap bag later," Raito warned resolutely, "and I'm beating you to death."

"You know, I can just walk out of-"

"No. No, you can't."

L blinked twice, uncaringly, and blew a puff of air at his bangs. When Raito was punishing crime, he was good.

But there were certain times when he got angry that Raito became _evil_.

And _he_. _Could._ _Not. Be. Defeated_.

L let the argument slide with the grudging inclination to become Raito's punching bag if it would make him feel better. The unconquerable brunette nodded swiftly as if he'd expected the answer all along, and then set about glaring into the mirror and groaning in spontaneous, unspeakable agony.

L whistled once to himself, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked out the door. Raito would go about his business, whatever whining that might entail, and the mini-death would wander about the apartment until he was needed. Out of courtesy, which was the only nicety he would allow Tall, Dark, and Geeky, he refrained from passing through what few closed doors he saw.

Bored quickly with the white walls and fluffy carpet, L dipped forward and flew across the living room, lodging himself halfway into the kitchen wall. He ignored the electrical work and peeked straight through Mikami's kitchen tile. The offending mortal was blissfully heating frozen pastries in the toaster L had threatened him with.

Hah. Frozen pastries. The idiot probably couldn't cook to save his puny, miserable life. Mutter… mutter…

L could cook. Well, he didn't know this for a fact, but he'd observed enough food to understand the process. How difficult could it be?

Two pastries saw themselves to the counter before Raito poked his sunshine-and-rainbows countenance around the kitchen door. "Smells good," he remarked with a smile.

'Smells good!' mouthed L.

Disgusting…

The psychopomp noticed without surprise that Raito had chosen a lavishly knit afghan to wrap around his shoulders like a hairy, forest-green weasel. L couldn't complain much. Green was Raito's color, though he could have done without the fuzz. It went nicely with the previous day's clothes.

L watched and wrung his hands in his hair as Raito and that goddamn love-snatcher shared a heartwarming conversation over a pair of heated, imitation bakery goods. Raito, surprisingly, was the one who brought up the interview the other mortal was supposed to be giving him, and Mikami waved it off, saying that the last thing Raito needed was an interrogation. Perhaps they'd meet another time.

L couldn't wait.

When Raito finally decided he had to leave, he waltzed to the door, Mikami and afghan in tow, and stood with his back to it. He _begged_ to help Mikami fold his blankets and set them somewhere else, but the dark-haired mortal would have none of it. Being time for him to leave, Raito tossed the afghan somewhere in the room, kept his back to the door, and allowed Mikami a deeper kiss than the one before.

This was where L left the room. He shut his eyes, shoved his index fingers into his ears, and sang Croatia's national anthem as he sailed into the hallway.

Raito skillfully backed out the door half a minute later, looking quite satisfied with himself, and L frankly lost the urge to live.

As soon as the door was safely shut, Raito spryly sashayed down the hall and awarded L a puckish grin as he passed. The mini-death only blew a puff of air at his bangs. Raito knew L hated it when he paraded his saucy attitude like a colorful, epilepsy-inducing flag. L knew he knew. The sprightly mortal continued indulging in such acts only for the purpose of getting a rise out of his stoic mini-death friend.

It was working, goddammit.

L thought about giving the mortal the cold shoulder, but Raito already knew how the mini-death disliked his antics. Pretending L didn't care was useless as of now.

Instead of vocalizing his inner muses, the panda-eyed psychopomp wearily plodded about after his charge. He fell into step with Raito halfway down the stairs to the second floor. Neither of them said a word, but the brunette's expression had changed to something more bored and mundane. This was a change L decided he liked.

Raito wandered down the steps and marched heroically out the apartment complex's small glass door. Once he was on the street, the brunette remarked with a casual appraisal of his fingertips, "Please, by all means, leave more of those marks everywhere. They do _so much_ for my complexion."

L knew a snide comment when he heard one, and would not award Raito the pleasure of listening to an apology. Instead, "I agree," was all he said.

The brunette flashed his amber eyes dangerously, warning L of the things to come if he insisted on acting the way he did. This was tragic, as L had no intention of letting up.

He didn't want to creep Raito out, but the fact that Raito hadn't _completely_ lashed out at him suggested that the brunette wasn't quite as deeply shaken as L previously assumed. He was annoyed, yes, but not skittish. Therefore, L straightened his sweater and his posture and remarked, "It's a very pretty red spot. I could give you more if you want."

A queer backward glance was his response, to which L grinned accommodatingly and spun his hair into a twist. Raito shook his head slightly and scorned him with a bland 'Keh' before resuming his previous stride and flipping his bangs out of his face like a Pantene commercial.

Ah, good.

L could almost jump for joy. There Raito was, sporting a huge bite-mark on the back of his neck, tossing his hair around like he couldn't care less.

Couldn't care… oh my.

The mini-death held in his excitement and curiosity until he and Raito entered a less-crowded section of town. He checked right and left for Raye Penber and found him dutifully following his target as if he knew Raito's location all along. Interesting…

"He's here again," announced L.

Raito offered him a nod in return and decided on a whim to cross the threshold of the electronics store he'd been eyeing the other day. The small shop was fairly quiet, with the exception of a few LCD television sets advertising themselves along the back left wall of the shop. The single visible employee stretched a gap-toothed smile at him and waved an amiable hello. Raito, polite little princess that he was, smiled back. There were two other shoppers beside himself and L, the mini-death observed. If the one employee was distracted enough…

L impishly abandoned Raito once the mortal went doe-eyed over an expensive digital camera. He crawled along the wall until he arrived at the pow-wow of televisions. Quietly and unassumingly, he rearranged the wiring in one speaker to make it infinitely louder and fuzzier than the other. This attracted the predictable attention of the employee, who skittered over to the corner and began the unrelenting task of locating the problem. L was satisfied in his work and glided back over to Raito. The mortal cast him a withering glare before fawning once again over a piece of chromed technology.

L looked to the left… L looked to the right… L glared through the windows…

No one was looking.

With that affirmation, the mini-death lost his mind and pulled Raito backward in a hug. The mortal stiffened, as L expected, and then relaxed and snorted as if the mini-death's gesture didn't unnerve him in the slightest. "Ryuzaki," he warned quietly, "stop making a fool of yourself." The tone in which this line was delivered would suggest to any listener that Raito was quite bored with L. L, however, knew this to be untrue. The fluttering of the brunette's blood was more than enough to give him away.

L instantly released him, much to Raito's apparent confusion, fell down on the ground, curled his knees into his chest, and rolled gleefully about on the floor.

Hah!

L was right!

There was hope for him after all!

Whether he knew it or not, Raito was utilizing a classic method of push-away-but-not-_all-the-way_. He was turning his proverbial back with a nose to the stars… while glancing over his shoulder to see if L was still following. The mini-death was certain Raito would refuse to refer to it as thus, but it was thus:

Raito was flirting.

Out of the courtesy of his soul, L flirted back.

----

Raito rubbed at the mark on the back of his neck. He glared at the infernal mini-death cart-wheeling at his heels. The incident at the appliance shop was three blocks behind him, but the oddity of the ordeal still hovered dankly about him in a nebula of mischief.

What on _earth _was Ryuzaki flipping out about? Honestly.

Raito rolled his eyes and decided to postpone the inevitable meeting with his father by ducking into a dimly lit café. Once the glass-paned door clattered shut behind him, he noticed in vague annoyance that the cheery, red-painted sign outside the window had been terribly misleading. Not only was the café barely lit, but it was also more of a bar, if anything.

Glasses of all manner of sizes, diameters, and colors lined the shelf behind the bar. The red barstools were mediocrely kept, sporting the occasional rip in the fake leather. There were a few strangely-dressed men playing banged-up arcade games in a corner.

The wood flooring was gummy, the air was cool, and for the time of day, the building was well-loved. Patrons of all shapes and sizes hacked their cigarette smoke and enjoyed a shot of whatever was on tap at the time.

Legally speaking, Raito was underage. Young, if you would. Ah, but the rules never stopped Raito before! Perhaps he could trick the dribble-eyed bartender into tossing him a shot or two.

He ignored the curious eyes of the more haggard and aged crowd. Raito simply marched up to the bar, picked a seat, and settled there. Ryuzaki adopted his classic crouch on the vacant barstool next to him and ran an abused thumb along his lips. "This is illegal," he remarked.

Raito radiated a triumphant grin which silently stated that yes, he already knew that, and yes, he was quite used to breaking the law as of late.

The bartender shuffled amiably in his direction. She was one of those mid-twenties women, in the prime of her life, who looked as if her body were made of memory foam. Lewdly put, she had curves. Her lips looked as if they'd absorbed the many coats of gloss she was wearing and her chest pushed out of her shirt like a pair of pom-poms. She waddled over with her hands to her sides like a big-legged penguin and asked, "What can I do for ya', hun?"

"Run a mile for me, perhaps," grumbled Ryuzaki.

Not in the mood to be creative, Raito offhandedly inquired as to the availability of a glass of Kirin Ichiban.

To this, she calmly and perkily asked for a form of ID.

Which he had no intention of showing her.

Raito noticed his stalker hovering about on a bench across the street and decided that he needed to make his life as scandalous as he could. That taken into account, he remarked that he left his ID at home.

She- Raito noticed her name to be Tsubaki- amiably replied that she refused to serve alcohol to minors.

Well, damn.

Raito sighed at her and she left. Hmm… what to do, what to do.

Then, he remembered the incident on the bus and a thought occurred to him that would send the world reeling. Raito's eyes narrowed and he couldn't stop the grin on his face from spreading.

Raito got a beautifully, gloriously evil idea.

The brunette recalled the woman's first and last name. Now if he could only get the names of any other people in the room…

"Hey you," Raito pointed rudely and curiously at the old man struggling with his cigarette. The man squinted at him through his bleary, black eyes and said nothing. Encouraged, Raito continued his barrage. "What's your name? I think I've seen you somewhere before…"

The old man cracked a yellow grin and muttered, "Really? Well I ain't seen no boys like you."

Rats. Raito went for the throat again. "No, seriously. What's your name?"

The man chewed slowly on his cigarette, calculating Raito's features through his watery eyes. He hacked up another cluster of clouds before admitting, "Daichi Enoki. What's it to ya'?"

The brunette held a well-attended war-dance in his head while maintaining a look of deep thought. "I can't remember… but I know I've seen you somewhere…"

"Too bad," coughed the man, clearly annoyed with Raito's prying.

Hah. Score one for Raito.

Kira: one. Public: zip.

Raito settled back into his seat at the bar. The bartender cast numerous, fishy glances at him and asked him to leave. The brunette sighed and pled, "Just one more minute and I'm gone."

One more minute was all he needed to imagine Daichi walking up to Tsubaki on the street and snatching her purse. The angry woman would jump in her car and charge down the street after him like the cow that she was, catch up to him after he slipped and fell over a curb, and crush him beneath her wheels. The incident would be documented, Tsubaki would be tried for vehicular homicide, and she would go to jail two Mondays from the present. One week would pass, and on Tuesday, at exactly ten fifty two in the morning, she would die of a heart attack.

But not before apologetically handing Raito a nice, tall glass of Japanese beer.

A snap sealed her fate and Raito glanced gleefully at Ryuzaki. The blank, harried look on the mini-death's face suggested that he had caught wind of the thoughts whirring through Raito's head.

What did Raito care for Ryuzaki's disapproval?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

After all, the bartender was waddling slowly in his direction with a fizzing, golden glass. Raito pretended to be surprised when the clanking of ice and crystal was dropped onto the counter. He blinked up into her round, yellow face. Tsubaki's glittering eyes held an expression akin to guilt and her rich voice resounded from her throat. "Sorry, sir," she sighed, "I shouldn'a put you through so much trouble."

Heh.

Bingo.

"Well… thank you," Raito mimicked astonishment and curled his fingers around the fat beer glass. The bartender, being distracted and short of words, trotted silently back to the other end of the bar. The brunette tipped his glass to his lips and sipped at the sour, bitter froth floating at the top of his drink. A satisfactory smack of the lips was all to signify any audience that he found the burning trail the beer blazed down his throat to be one of life's greater pleasures.

"I must be God," hummed Raito.

"You're the devil," deadpanned Ryuzaki.

Raito only smiled.

Nothing more was exchanged between the two of them until Raito set the glass down on a few bills and waltzed regally into the light. The brunette _was_ going to kill Tsubaki, after all. He might as well have left her some sympathy cash.

"If you don't mind my saying so, Raito-kun," remarked an intelligent voice from behind, "you're evil."

"Delightfully evil," corrected Raito playfully. He was in a good mood and he would be damned if Ryuzaki ruined it for him. Offhandedly, Raito checked his peripheral vision and saw that his stalker was still following. He'd probably seen everything.

As Raito had planned. What a risqué life he was leading. Wouldn't it be divine if A and W saw him as a classic, secretive, disturbed genius? He was safe, as Raye couldn't possibly have seen Tsubaki's face through the glare and gloom on either side of the bar's windows.

Wait.

What was Raye doing _still_ following him after yesterday?

Wouldn't the FBI pull him out of the city for making direct contact with his target? Hmm… Raito would have to hack his father's network and see for himself.

Suddenly, the loud roar of an engine was heard.

And the street went dead silent.

Raito recalled a familiar scene from the day before. A car had come from nowhere, revved its engine, and enveloped the street into a silent spell. A curious bystander, he stopped mid-step to locate a glowing red Mustang rocketing down the uneven pavement.

What the hell?

Raito leaned in and squinted queerly at it. As the car flashed past in a hurricane of exhaust and chrome, he identified the driver to be a man, probably his age, with dusty leather-colored hair and ski-goggles. He held one smoldering cigarette loosely from his lips.

As soon as the machine and its lone ranger galloped into the sunset, Raito turned to the nearest bystander and asked what on earth just happened. The balding man only shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. Frustrated, Raito glared at Ryuzaki. The mini-death muttered, "Have a look around you," and pointed disinterestedly at a hyperventilating red-haired man clad in a stereotypical ensemble of Hawaiian-print shirt and khaki pants. He clasped a digital camera between his pudgy sausage fingers.

Raito clicked his tongue and decided that the man was as good an observer as any. He walked over to the nameless tourist, who appeared so excited that he might have fallen to pieces at any moment.

"Excuse me, sir," Raito asked politely, "but what was that just now?"

The man stopped breathing for a moment. He set wide, green eyes on Raito and stuttered his broken Japanese in a fantastic old-country accent. If it pleased Raito to translate anything the man said into his native tongue, he fancied it would have sounded something like this: "You mean, you ain't seen it?"

"Umm…" drawled Raito, "no."

"That there Mustang's witched!"

Raito furrowed his eyebrows at odd angles and deadpanned, "You mean like 'haunted?'"

"Like haunted!" the tourist gesticulated with a spasmodic display of jazz-hands.

Raito's shoulders slumped and he shook his head. "What?" was all he could say.

"Ever' day, 'bout this time, that Ghost Horse comes ramblin' down the road, all a-buckin' and a-kickin'. Ain't nobody drivin' that hell-damned thang. Jes' drives hisself!"

"Pardon me, sir," Raito scoffed politely, "But there was definitely someone driving it."

And there had been.

Raito saw him, cigarette and all.

The man's pudgy, county-fair-first-prize swine face wrinkled into a very pink scowl. "You callin' me a liar?" he roared.

Raito eased his hands in front of his face in an attempt to pacify the perspiring pork-roast before him. "No, no," he whistled, "There's just no way a car can drive itself."

"Can if it's haunted!" the man pressed. Suddenly, he invaded Raito's personal space and hooked the brunette's arm in the crook of his own. Alarmed, Raito was dragged awkwardly along as the man sifted through the pictures on his digital camera. "Now see here," the man puffed, indicating the camera screen, "This here's a picture I took last week.

Raito was honestly astonished to see that there was, indeed, absolutely _no one_ in the driver's seat of the car. But he swore…

Ryuzaki had sensed his surprise and came dutifully to his aid, opting mischievously to perch upon Raito's back and look over his shoulder. Raito didn't mind. The mini-death weighed nothing anyway.

"Now this here's from yesterday," the tourist went on, still imprisoning Raito in his vice-grip. Raito squinted at the screen to notice that, once again, the shiny, red car was vacant.

The man clicked a button one last time and puffed, "Now here's today."

Same Mustang. Same color. No driver.

Raito was honestly perplexed.

Every muscle in the tourist's body seemed to strain with the enormous grin twisting his face. As he babbled something about, "I told you so," Raito set to thinking about whether or not he was completely insane.

So _he _saw the man with the cigarette, but no one else did? Hm. This could mean one of two things. Either Raito had flown completely off of his rocker, or…

Ryuzaki wasn't alone.

Yet, from what Raito understood, god-lings of death like Ryuzaki were only allotted a specific amount of time in the human world. If this one was driving a Mustang down the same street each day, then he must have been there for a while.

Hmm…

Raito thanked the tourist for his- 'cough-' enthusiasm- 'cough' and set one foot in front of the other in order to walk to a home he didn't want to see. His father was probably still angry.

"So," Ryuzaki piped up suddenly, "You could see this person and no one else could?" He was obviously referring to the perplexing paradox which occurred a minute before. Raito cast him a skeptical look and muttered, "Yeah. You recognize him?"

"No," the mini-death grumbled, "but I saw him as well. I take it you know what this means, yes?"

"So I think, but I hope not."

Ryuzaki's porcupine hair flattened dangerously and he growled, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing," deadpanned Raito offhandedly.

Another psychopomp. Not only was the possibility another infringement on his privacy, but he also wondered at its purpose for being there. Beings like Ryuzaki had a tight schedule, though Raito supposed the mini-death's extended stay with him warranted the eye of a higher-up. If Ryuzaki could stay for the amount of time that he had, then a new mini-death could certainly take his time in Tokyo.

Raito called on his lucky stars to prevent a confrontation with yet _another _setback, be it more ethereal baggage or not.

He did _not_ need another mini-death following him around.

Raito hopped on the nearest bus, yet he shouldn't have been surprised that his stalker refused to follow him. He wanted to maintain as low a profile as he could.

Ryuzaki more than made up for his oppressive presence, however. The panda-man circled Raito's back like a vulture before perching on the back of the seat and nudging an annoying foot into Raito's side. The brunette glanced casually about him before gripping the leg to which Ryuzaki's foot was attached and shoving it away. Much to his entertainment, the mini-death yelped and lost his balance, falling through the seat next to him.

Raito swiped his hands across one another in satisfaction before settling back into his seat.

If Ryuzaki wasn't willing to relinquish his childish infatuation, then Raito was going to have a fun time avoiding it. If the mini-death insisted on being clingy and physical, Raito would insist on boredly shoving him off.

Besides, it was fun to watch him bounce back.

Speaking of which, the mini-death was curled around Raito's shoes and had since started gnawing fiendishly on their soles. The brunette casually sighed, cast Ryuzaki a devil-may-care eye, and kicked his legs out. The mini-death judged Raito's strength well as he held fast to the brunette's feet.

Raito quickly assessed the situation and how much force would be required to kick the mini-death away. The brunette rolled his eyes and leaned back. He didn't feel _that_ energetic.

His stop came and he managed to shoot Ryuzaki a glare that liberated both feet. Raito billowed out of the bus like a monarch and marched away with his head held high. Ryuzaki, as ever, was at his heels.

Raito ignored him as he neared his own block. His father would undoubtedly be pacing back and forth in front of the widescreen television, wearing darker the pace-path that was already there. He probably would have called everyone he knew: Aizawa, Mogi, even Matsuda. Who knew? Maybe there were policemen searching all over town.

Hah.

Yeah.

A nervous feeling settled in the pit of Raito's stomach and he silently willed the rhinos out of his gut. Why was he so anxious? He hadn't accomplished any actions of disobedience _this_ serious before, but he _had_ made his father angry. He knew how angry his father got about small issues, so perhaps that was why he was so nervous.

"Heh," Raito laughed, slightly unnerved, "he's going to kill me."

"Not 'kill' you," interjected Ryuzaki, "lock you in your room for months at a time."

"Thank you, Ryuzaki," Raito grumbled, "I feel _much_ better now."

"Glad I could help," the mini-death replied in a sneer.

As Raito rounded the corner that brought him even with his front door, a multitude of interesting events occurred.

Firstly, Raito noticed the amount of vehicles parked on either curb of the extremely narrow street. This, Raito found extremely intriguing, as no one ever parked their cars on the curb. Were they the cars of his closest friends? Investigators? Unmarked police cars? His father wouldn't need so many units to track him down when the stalker he and A and W hired was tracking his every move. By all means, they should have known Raito's not-boyfriend's name, number, address, and favorite color.

Secondly, Raito observed the way the door to his house was being thrust open. Emerging from the door was Ukita, widow's peak glimmering in the sun. An unappealing vein popped from his forehead as it was sometimes famed to do. Second from the door was Aizawa, his peculiar afro billowing in the wind like the canopy of a tree. Matsuda was halfway out the door when, through some horrible tragedy of nature, his childish black eyes and Raito's own amber ones collided and stopped.

The third notable thing that Raito observed in that short amount of time was Matsuda's overjoyed squeal. Mogi lurched from behind the door and blinked his beady eyes, Aizawa spun on his heels, and Ukita glared stupidly from beyond his shoulder.

The fourth and most important occurrence was thrust upon Raito when Soichiro suddenly burst forth from the front door and fixed his son in place with two abnormally sharp, baggy eyes.

When all four investigators lunged in his general direction and his father formed the syllables of his name, Raito prepared to deal with the situation as he saw fit. He turned a heel on the sidewalk in case he needed to retrace his steps at fifty miles an hour. Raito was strongly against flight, but in this special case, it could buy him some time until his father and his cohorts were willing to come to an amiable solution to the problem, preferably one that didn't involve being locked anywhere for any amount of time.

All five men calculated Raito's resolution to escape and relented in their deliberate march.

Soichiro huffed and puffed in the doorway. "Raito," he heaved, "come here."

----

Oh dear.

Well wasn't this a happy sight. Father reunited with son.

Only in this case, Father was very angry, possibly to the point of irrational thought, and was backed up by four other men, one of which looked especially strong, while son was left feeling generally flighty, helpless, and perhaps desperate. All in all, the variables in play were prone to violent and disagreeable interaction. L was not opposed to stepping onto a few toes or necks, whichever pleased him at the moment, in order to preserve Raito's happiness. He had a gut feeling that this action in itself would condemn Raito to eternal suspicion, having an invisible protective force, and refrained from acting in such a way while Raito was still conscious.

His father stood in the doorway, looking for all the world like an elephant in labor (and being nearly as irritable). "Raito," he demanded, "come here."

Raito opted to vocalize his opinion by remaining quiet as a church mouse beneath the gaze of a cat. He set his gorgeous golden eyes into a steely glare and affixed the soles of his shoes to the pavement.

"Raito-kun!" the man with the childish grin piped up, "We were so worried about y-"

"Raito-kun, stop fooling around," warned the one with the poofy hair.

The one with the monkey-face sighed, "Don't do anything stupid."

The brunette stood his ground, though L could tell by the calculating look in his eye that he felt threatened by the amount of people set against him.

Raito's equally-worn mother poked her head out from behind her husband and slumped in relief. "Raito-kun!" she cried, "I was so worried about you!" she marched bravely into the crowd of men and continued to worry. "Where did you go? Did anything happen?"

Raito mused for a moment before stepping back as a warning for his mother and anyone else to stay where they were. The message was well-interpreted, as the one with the afro held an arm out to keep Sachiko behind him.

L watched in amusement as Kira and the Chief of Police held an uninterrupted staring contest. Soichiro slowly moved away from the door and out into the street, the Great Wall of Investigators allowing him passage into the stalemate war zone between them and disobedient Death.

"You came back," Soichiro remarked evenly.

L knew from experience that there was no card in Kira's deck which could trump the powerful 'limping back' cliché. The brunette handled the blow well, though. "Maybe so I could _pack_ before I left," he shot back.

"Don't be foolish, Raito," Soichiro warned with a shake of the head, "I don't know what's gotten into you, but you are coming into this house and we are going to sit down and _talk_ about this."

L also knew from experience that Raito didn't respond well to force. "I'm not talking about anything," the brunette spurned with a shake of the head.

"You used to be such a responsible adult!" swore Soichiro, "What changed you?"

Raito jerked his head in L's direction, "Ryuzaki thinks you're an ass."

The four men surrounding Raito's mother all exchanged strange, uncomfortable looks. L felt quite proud that his existence could instill discomfort in so many people. Soichiro adopted a familiar look of exasperation and growled, "You still _listen_ to that thing?" Then, his eyes darkened as if passing over a gloomy revelation. "Does 'Ryuzaki' tell you to disobey me like this?"

"No," remarked Raito, "I do it because I want to."

Soichiro dug his fingertips into his hairline and sighed loudly. As he paced the pavement, the outspoken afro-man flagged him down. "Chief," was the only word he uttered. Soichiro just shook his head.

Soichiro's spasmodic pacing episode ended quickly as he yelled, "So are you coming inside or not?"

"No," replied Raito.

It was at this point in time that L noticed Raito's odd affinity for arguments. Arguments were thrilling, and if the brunette's occupation of Great Death was to be admired, he enjoyed a good rush of adrenaline. That, and the mortal had taken a sudden hobby of making his life as scandalous as he could.

"Don't make me come after you," Soichiro warned softly, "Just be reasonable. Come here, and I promise I'll listen to everything you have to say."

L giggled.

Raito was similarly afflicted with the mini-death's humor. "That's too bad, because I don't want to talk to you."

Soichiro thought for a moment with his hand stressfully against his chin. "Get in the house, Raito," he demanded resolutely.

Silence.

"Raito-kun," wailed Sachiko, "please do what your father wants!"

Raito, having all the time in the world, shifted his weight to the other heel and mused. L could tell by the look in his eyes that he was neither considering his options nor considering their consequences. He probably had a song stuck in his head or something and it pleased him to think it over.

Such was the beauty of being young and invincible.

"Raito!" shouted Soichiro, "This is your last chance. You can either walk into the house like a responsible adult, or you can let Mogi and I drag you into the car and pay a visit to Lidner-san!"

Raito was instantly annoyed at the mention of his psychiatrist's name. This, L knew, because the mortal daringly began to backpedal into the perpendicular street from whence he had come. The last thing Soichiro uttered before his backup broke into a run was a slow, warning, "Raito!"

But Raito didn't care.

The brunette had vanished down the street in a flurry of auburn hair and diabolical intentions. L caught up to him, half-running, half floating beside him. He noticed the wild look in Raito's eyes and took it to heart.

Raito was no run-of-the-mill bully with a run-of-the-mill magnifying glass. Whereas he used to kill for necessity, Raito now accomplished his pastimes for the thrills. He didn't run because he needed to, he ran because he wanted to. The brunette delighted in seeing the expression on humanity's face when he defied it.

He crushed the lives of two innocent people that day, in what manner L cared not, simply because it pleased him to do so. This action was cruel and unforgivable, yes, but then again, as Kira would say, when he ruled the world, he determined right from wrong. The deaths of these humans were in no way required, but the idea appealed to Raito at the time. He was experimenting with these people because he wanted to watch half of the world squirm and the other half cheer.

He was just drawing all of the entertainment he could from any sacrifice he made.

Against his will and against his morals, L found Raito's attitude intolerable and as a result, irresistibly adorable.

Raito was halfway down a second block when a tawny compact car drove carefully, quickly, and deftly about the corner he'd passed. L informed him of it, but Raito was naturally in tune to the environment and had already found his escape route. He tore across the street and expertly leapt the fence of a nearby house. There was a small, human-sized gap between Raito's hiding place and the next house, which he shimmied through with close to no trouble. He climbed a bush to the top of the next fence and hefted himself over it.

It became apparent to L that Raito wasn't merely hopping this way and that in hopes of dodging his father's cohorts. He was very purposefully traveling in a beeline toward _something_. When Raito squeezed through his second narrow gap of the day, L saw where he was headed.

A small park was nestled happily between two blocks of houses. Trees sprouted here and there along with an industrial-grade swing set and a sand pit.

…L didn't like to think he knew what an odd turn Raito would be taking, but when the ambitious mortal stopped at the base of a tall, sturdy tree, the mini-death had no choice but to roll his eyes and hide his head in his hands. Raito grabbed a hold of the grooved bark and bounced off the ground a few times to test it. He then cast an intelligent eye at L and commanded, "Ryuzaki, help me climb this tree."

L had no choice in the matter, seeing that the tree was high, Raito was determined, and the investigators were hot on his trail. His only question was, "How?" to which Raito answered that L would simply sit there and let Raito step all over him.

…

Well, it would work, and L calmly told himself that living with Raito was basically like being stepped on anyway.

The mini-death let Raito climb the tree with his help, and to any outsider, it would appear that the mortal was just really handy at climbing trees. No supernatural forces involved.

So there they both were, precariously nested in the third-to-highest branch of the highest tree in the park, and Raito seemed content with the sad direction his life had taken.

"You used to be so respectable," reminisced L, "You used to listen to your father, try to be safe, study hard, and generally be _quietly_ evil. Now here you are, pretending to be a lunatic, climbing trees, and talking to people who don't exist."

"You exist," Raito pointed out.

"Not the point," stated L.

Raito sighed tiredly. "I know how I'm acting, Ryuzaki. I know what I'm doing."

"I doubt it," hummed L.

"I can't sit back and act normal, can I?" the mortal scoffed, "I have a thought, mood, and anxiety disorder. I'm crazy. Crazy people act crazy. I can be thoughtful and decisive in private, but to my father and, apparently, the NPA, I'm sick. Besides, with my father and his subordinates preoccupied with my 'behavior,' maybe they'll be too busy to focus on anything else."

True, true, the psychotic serial killer had a point.

"But won't your family among other people notice the sudden change in your behavior?" L inquired with a thumb to his lips as a car came screeching to a halt on the street below.

Raito disregarded the question for a moment and examined the car. "Two of them have passed by already. I bet the one who found me is… Matsuda. He's the only one who'd be staring at the sky instead of the street."

L quirked an eyebrow.

A car door slammed and suddenly, the childish one scrambled over to the pavement with an exclamation of "Oh my GOD!" He fumbled in his pockets while focusing his attention eternally upward. L felt sorry for him. He'd get a nasty crick in his neck later.

"Raito-kun!" the man exclaimed, "Get down from there!"

The brunette grinned at him.

L shook his head. Not only did Raito climb the tree for escaping purposes, but L suspected that he also secretly enjoyed the microscopic size of his enemies.

"Where were we?" The brunette yawned over Matsuda's harping.

"Your family will notice your sudden change in behavior," L offered.

"Oh, right," sighed Raito. He glanced down once again on Matsuda, who was now yelling very loudly into a cell phone. He explained, "Firstly, like I said before, I have a mental disorder. The change has been slow enough to be blamed on my schizophrenia. Secondly, no one really knew the way I acted normally. I keep to myself too much. It's only because he delved into my personal life that my dad thinks I've changed."

Once again, Raito was a very realistic thinker for being a mental case.

Two more cars skidded beneath the canopy of the tree, yielding two more of Soichiro's minions: The one with the afro and the one with the widow's peak. All three men began chattering to one another, before Matsuda pointed a finger in Raito's direction and six eyes were suddenly on him.

"You're in trouble," remarked L.

Raito nodded. "I hear schizophrenic people tend to be suicidal. With any luck, I can bluff about jumping and my dad will have to reconsider."

"Not quite," L reasoned, "Once you're on the ground, all bets are off. He can withdraw whatever deals he made with you and he can put you on suicide watch."

Raito's lashes fell to a stolid half-mast and he sighed, "You really know how to drag a man down."

L managed a lewd grin.

"Why, yes, Raito-kun," he ventured brashly, "Yes I do."

Instantaneously, the mini-death found himself being slapped in the face with the back of Raito's sleeve-clad hand.

Ah… what a perfect slap. So perfect, in fact, that L felt the need to repay him with a headlock. The brunette squirmed minimally however many feet in the air, watched by his pursuers.

In this headlock, a ping of inspiration resounded through the leaves. L wrapped another arm around Raito's midriff and settled behind him, pulling him into his lap. The sudden signal of thought had come from the brunette, that much was clear, as L's mind was currently incapable of any form of coherent thought. The mist in his consciousness lifted slowly and Raito's rapid heartbeat suggested that he was about to say something insane.

"Hey Ryuzaki," mumbled Raito, "think you could give me any more marks?"

L dropped dead then and there.

----

The mini-death's blood pressure must've failed, because he went into a fantastic swoon and Raito had to concentrate on his balance just to keep the two of them on the tree branch. Ryuzaki quickly regained his composure and asked, "Weren't you angry at me because of that?"

Wasn't he?

_Why_ would Raito want Ryuzaki to attack him?

For the scandal. Raito was doing it for the scandal. Granted, he was probably going overboard with the day's megadrama, but Raito was an opportunist and the opportunity was flying by.

"Just do it," grumbled Raito.

Oddly enough, the brunette's opportunity didn't want to participate. "I think you've put on enough makeup to convince your audience that you're a female dolphin in a clown outfit," remarked Ryuzaki. Apparently, the love-sick mini-death was having second thoughts.

Raito rolled his eyes. "Don't try that Mikami trick on me," he grumbled, knowing that the mention of the other man would send Ryuzaki into a controlled fit.

The mini-death contained himself. "I don't think Raito-kun knows what he wants."

Damn! Backed into a corner. Well… Raito supposed he could do with what little red streaks he had. He was _certainly_ not going to leap into Ryuzaki's arms and tell him that yes, he knew what he wanted. That would be … odd.

So maybe… he would… wait until later.

On another note, Soichiro was now shouting up at him from the pavement. "Raito! Raito, what on earth are you doing?"

"Sitting in a tree!" Raito replied.

"How do you plan on getting down from there?"

Experimentally and with disregard for Ryuzaki's suspicions, Raito yelled, "Well, I could always _jump_."

Front doors were opening now and neighbors were poking their heads out of their homes to discern the source of the racket. Ukita was making his rounds about the doors and pacifying the inhabitants of each. Mogi, who had driven Soichiro to the scene of the crime, stood with Aizawa's phone, probably calling for the fire department or something.

The fire department.

Delicious.

Well, at least Raito was having an interesting day.

Raito's father continued yelling at him, trying to convince him that _he_ didn't want to jump, _Ryuzaki_ wanted him to jump (since 'Ryuzaki' had become Soichiro's common name for Raito's 'schizophrenia'), and that if he stayed put until the fire department came, everything would be alright.

The brunette abandoned Ryuzaki and assembled himself lazily against his tree branch. He draped his arms and legs around the branch and lay there, bemusedly picking at the bark, wondering why he was acting as desperate as he was.

He didn't need to be _this_ crazy.

Yet, as he'd mentioned before, it was a good method of diverting his father's attention from Kira. Plus, if he could deal with his father's fits, he could deal with anyone's fits, A and W included. If he could keep calm in the face of a raging, overprotective father, then he could stay cool as a cucumber under any circumstance.

Wailing sirens heralding its arrival at the scene, a fire truck parked where the five investigators had left a space for it. Scurrying out of it were oddly dressed men, who from the tree looked whimsically like flowers. They all glanced up at Soichiro's command and assured Raito that they'd get him down safely.

Insanely, Raito replied that he had no intention of getting down safely, so all of them could go about their own business and leave him alone.

Soichiro was explaining something to one of the men. Judging from the measured nods of the listener, he was hearing nonsense about Raito and his dangerous mental condition.

Ryuzaki was probably right.

Raito would get locked up somewhere for a week or two. His privacy would be nonexistent.

…

Perfect.

Yes… this could work! There was no way for him to be Kira when he was under the closest surveillance all the time.

Devious thoughts came to mind and Raito felt infinitely proud that he'd gotten himself stuck in that tree. Raito discovered that he could use people to interact with other people. He could _kill _people with other people. Granted, this was against the morals of a peace-loving, justice-oriented deity such as himself, but Raito was willing to make exceptions. Sacrifices needed to be made before he could exact true justice again.

Besides, he knew there was a heaven. He knew there was a hell. Raito was just sending his victims from one life to the next sooner than usual.

Everything he did was justified.

In that knowledge, Kira resolved that, as long as he was under surveillance, he would force Ryuzaki to get him the names of anyone and everyone. He would then use these names to commit crimes before he killed them.

They weren't on the news.

They weren't in the paper.

These people would be nobodies.

If they were on the news, all the better for Raito. Under the amount of surveillance he would be, it would be literally impossible for his supervisors to pin their deaths on him.

It would no longer be possible for A and W to suspect him as they did.

Sure, Raito would forever be labeled as a raving lunatic for his behavior, but what god needed an earthly reputation?

As the stepladder atop the truck extended to Raito's branch, one man with a brake of stubble enveloping the lower half of his face beckoned the brunette in his general direction. Raito blew a puff of troublesome air at his bangs before deciding that the stakeout had gone to plan. He ambled agreeably over to his rescuer, but raced past him and slid expertly down the rail of the ladder.

People yelled, Soichiro sweated, and Matsuda gaped as Raito pranced regally and safely down the steps until he was caught by two firemen at the base of the ladder. Raito rolled his eyes at their 'We've got you, you're safe' mantra.

Since he was insane, he replied that he was safe the whole time and that he and Ryuzaki knew exactly what they were doing.

Raito was carefully transported to his father, who practically snatched him away and smothered him in anxious care. The brunette was asked if he was hurt. He replied that he was fine.

Not long after, he was being shoved in the back of a car with his father, while Mogi raced the both of them directly to Halle's office. "We're going to get this fixed," Soichiro muttered, "This _can_ be fixed. No more hallucinations, no more things telling you what to do, and no more _Ryuzaki._"

In the unoccupied front passenger seat, Ryuzaki stuck his tongue out.

After Raito's paranoid father was done blabbering to himself, he punched his home phone number into the cell-phone in his hand. "I've got him," Soichiro mumbled, referring to his son, "In a tree. No, no, he's fine. Yes. We're taking him to the psychiatrist's. I don't care how much it costs me, he's getting therapy, drugs, everything. We went over this, Sachiko. It could help."

_Oh yes… drugs fixed EVERYTHING._

Raito rolled his eyes and sighed.

Such was the price of being an enthusiastic lunatic. Drugs, therapy, surveillance. Oh well. He could stand it. After all, the more attention he got, the more likely A and W would see that he was just a schizophrenic teenager, not Kira.

Well, if Ryuzaki decided to cooperate.

Which he would.

Raito would manipulate any mediums possible to control the mini-death like a coon-eyed marionette. Ryuzaki had too many visible weak points for the brunette to take a stab at.

It was like playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey. You couldn't miss.

The entire board was an ass.

Hah hah.

Puns…

In sharp contrast to the rigid, agitated form of one Soichiro Yagami, Raito relaxed in his seat and reasoned that divinity was on his side. The day had gone perfectly. Once this fiasco cooled down and his father's blood pressure sank slightly, Kira could enjoy the peace of mind that only reassurance of innocence could bring.

If, by some cruel twist of fate, Raito's decision proved wrong, he could simply treat his outburst as an anger-triggered lapse.

The brunette grinned and shut his eyes.

He'd be out of A and W's claws forever.

----

Chibi Raito: I'm- EMMA! Not supposed to be- EMMA! This emotional- EMMA!

Me: Let's face it. If you were more expressive in the original story, your nemesis would have had no grounds to suspect you. I'm offering you a new, less stressful path in life.

Chibi L: Nemesis? –hides-

Chibi Raito: You've gotta' be- EMMA! Kidding me!

Chibi Misa: EMMA!

Me: Wow. It really is contagious…

Chibi Misa: Naw. I just didn't want Raito to feel alone.

Chibi Raito: Bitch- EMMA!

Chibi Misa: Love it? Hate it? Want a toilet made of gold? The world is cruel, but you can review and let Swirl know just how much you care!

Me: Cookies for your trouble!

Chibi Misa: You've read it, now review it! Review, review, review!


	13. Headache

**DS**

**Disclaimer: **…tea and crumpets, anyone?

Me: So my muse of EZ-Cheez was being bored one day and she got the wonderful idea to read Raito's last name backwards. Guess what it is?

Chibi L: Raito IMAGAY.

Chibi Raito: WHAT???

Me: Oh, it's true, fangirls and fanboys! Explains EVERYTHING, doesn't it?

Chibi Raito: But… but…

Chibi L: There's no denying it now, Raito. You can't pretend anymore. We _know._

Chibi Raito: This is NOT fair. I'm calling my lawyer!

Me: 'Death God' my foot. Now we know the author's real reason for choosing Raito's last name.

Chibi Misa: No! D:

Chibi L: Yes! XD

Me: I think we should have Mr. I'magay introduce us to this new chapter.

Chibi Raito: -not listening-

Chibi Misa: Readreviewandrelax! D:

**D S 13**

For the most part, Raito Yagami's week was full of 'nnnnggghhhh.' He threw in little bits of 'muhhhnnnnn' and 'hmmmm' in for variety, but generally, the week was 'nnnnggghhhh.'

It was no great wonder to Raito how this had happened. As a matter of fact, he suspected that the reason for this dreary change was entirely and ridiculously unnecessary. For, you see…

…Kira was on drugs.

How foolish he had been to assume that, since his psychiatrist was working with his nemeses, his pills would be placebos.

No.

Before now, he didn't expect anyone to be so _stupid_ as to actually give him pills. A and W didn't _seriously_ think he was a schizo, did they? On the other hand…

…Raito had different fingers…

…Wow…

…Anyway. On the other hand, this meant that his acting was as good as gold and better. That he could convince the world's two best detectives of something untrue was phenomenal. Accompanying the revelation on this other hand, there was a downside as well. Raito would have to act as if the symptoms of his schizophrenia were waning. This wouldn't be hard, but, if his slip-ups leading to this mess were anything to go by, making Ryuzaki disappear completely was no easy matter.

Ah, well.

If he screwed up, he could always say he didn't take his pills.

Which he was planning on doing anyway.

…Which, in turn, led him back to the present.

Raito sighed unhappily and rolled over once again on the living room couch. He felt positively _wretched_. The usual side-effects of his drugs, as Halle so helpfully supplied, were limited to drowsiness, headache, and lowered blood pressure among other things.

Currently, Raito was playfully inviting divinity to smite him. 'Drowsiness' was putting things lightly. 'Headache' was a word to be laughed at. The pain and pressure in Kira's head was enough to numb his mind and turn him into a raving, mumbling lunatic. Due to his overwhelming lethargy, he had made the couch his home since his first dose and now adamantly refused to leave. He stayed so long, in fact, that he had his blankets and pillows and whatever else delivered to him, despite his father's suspiciously grudging pushes of 'Maybe you should go to sleep in your room.' Whenever he rose to accomplish some motive or other, he had to do it in slow motion, lest he suddenly fall unconscious from his staggeringly low blood pressure.

This, as he and Ryuzaki both surmised, was not normal.

Side-effects of this magnitude never _ever_ happened. They were improbable and inconvenient. Raito, who had gotten himself off of the couch long enough to do some productive research on his computer, discovered that the life-threatening side-effects of his drugs were low white blood cell count, cardiac and respiratory failure upon sudden movement, paralytic ileus, and other rather unpleasant-sounding words.

He remarked offhandedly to Ryuzaki that perhaps his fatigue was due to a chemo-therapy-like drop in white blood cells, upon which, Ryuzaki offered the chilling revelation that, believe it or not, the Shinigami were probably going to kill him by means of his medicine.

This was where Raito decided that his pills could go to hell in his place. The mortal didn't particularly feel like dying that night.

Though he _did_ feel like a temporary solace from bodily pain was in order.

Like now.

If any person had walked into the room at that point in time, they would have heard a displeased 'nuuuuhhhhhh' emanating from the mountain of quilts and pillows on the couch.

Interestingly enough, this person was Sayu.

"Raito-kun?" she squeaked fearfully. A hapless 'hmuuhhhhh' and a heaving sigh of the mountain of blankets was all to herald Raito's weariness. Sayu took this as encouragement, apparently, as her footsteps creaked cautiously around the edge of the sofa. "Are you okay?" she asked stupidly.

Honestly, Raito loved the girl to death, but wasn't the situation… oh… _very painfully obvious?_

"Goawayyhhhh…" was Raito's answer.

"Okay…" his little sister peeped before the pitter-patter of her sock-clad feet tagged elsewhere.

Silence and darkness reigned gloomily inside of Raito's Fuzzy Fortress of Acoustic Invincibility for about three seconds.

"Your health concerns me," Ryuzaki stated in a mumble. Judging from the position of the quiet aura in which the mini-death perpetually surrounded himself, he had been purposelessly tracking an oval around the perimeter of the couch for the past twenty seven minutes.

A dissatisfied 'nnnnggghhhh' was all Raito gave him for his trouble.

"I see," remarked Ryuzaki in a woeful tone, probably with his thumb to his lips.

Then, as if by magic, two pairs of feet, one having a stride longer than the other, pattered into position behind the couch. A third set of feet padded slowly and reluctantly in the distance. A moment of hesitation passed, and then, "Raito-kun," worried Sachiko's voice, "You haven't touched your dinner. Are you still not feeling well?"

"Hmmmmmphh," said Raito.

Sachiko clicked her tongue and the side of the couch where Raito's feet were was suddenly heavier. A light assaulted his eyes and Raito then registered that his mother was purposely intruding on his misery. He didn't mind much, as there wasn't much he could do about it. The more blankets Sachiko peeled away from Raito's face, the further he hid.

The light trying so desperately to break through the brunette's eyelids was suddenly extinguished and Raito ventured a peek at the outside world. His mother cooed fretfully and for a moment Raito wondered how badly disheveled and sickly he must've looked. After all, he was hungry, tired, achy, and hadn't had a good shower in four days.

"Raito-kun…" his mother whined, petting his ruffled, greasy hair, "You poor dear."

Sayu poked her face into his line of vision then and he ventured a puffy-eyed glance at her. She squeaked and retreated with a flop of her pigtails before sneaking into his peripheral vision and staying there. As Sachiko pressed the back of her palm to Raito's forehead and said, "You have a fever," Ryuzaki floated in, upside-down, and remarked, "Oh my. You're quite the apparition today, Kira."

Raito groaned at him.

"How do you feel?" Sachiko asked earnestly.

"Like I have AIDS," Raito grumbled quasi-coherently.

"What?" a manly voice roared and thundered closer. Raito sighed in his wake. Leave it to Soichiro to take a figure of speech as a medical emergency…

"I'm kidding, Dad," sighed Raito tiredly. "Good God…"

"Don't kid around, Raito," Soichiro reprimanded sternly. Raito took a gander at the dark, flashing eyes before him and instantly decided that any further vocalization on his part would be dangerous and useless. He sighed listlessly and closed his eyes once more as he endured the attentions of three humans and one invisible cloud of something-more-than-arctic-air.

"It'll get better," soothed Sachiko, still caressing his hair, "You'll see, Honey."

"Mmmmmhhhh!" murmured Raito before forcefully tugging his blankets over his face. Sachiko made a surprised noise and hesitated, not knowing how to cope with her son's moods. Ryuzaki had a slightly better understanding and snickered, "Nice try."

"Sachiko, Sayu," sighed Raito's father, "I think it's best you left."

The brunette finished his father's thought with a _'so I can bug Raito instead.'_

Raito didn't know what form of communication passed between the three of them, but the two lighter pairs of footsteps plodded off into the distance while the larger, more menacing bipedal, carbon-based life form stayed behind.

And Raito could not _wait_ to hear what it had to say.

A taxed sigh emanated from somewhere in the room and Ryuzaki interrupted the atmosphere with a strategically placed, "Here we go…" while Soichiro took a seat somewhere and growled, "Raito…"

Raito knew all too well where this conversation would head. Soichiro informed Raito during one of his worse moods that he'd searched Raito's computer and found suspicious e-mails to an unknown man. He also informed Raito that he knew very well the nature of these e-mails and that any effort on his part to deny the situation would be promptly shot down and incinerated.

In short, he was aware that Raito had a secret crush.

On a man.

"Why," heaved Soichiro in a fatigued sigh. "How? How did this… Why?" He floundered for a bit as Raito breathed and braced himself for the barrage. As articulate as he was ever going to get, Soichiro mumbled, "You know what I found on your computer." A pause occurred, in which both Raito and his father collected their thoughts. "How long has this been going on?" Soichiro droned.

"None of your business," mumbled Raito.

"Yes," assured Soichiro, "yes it is."

"You're violating my privacy," Raito growled dangerously, "You're a detective. You should know that."

"I _do_ know that," warned Soichiro, "but I'm also concerned for the welfare of my son. If you're doing something or… _dating_ someone I've never met… Raito, I never knew you… you could have told me about this."

'This,' of course, being Raito's sexual orientation, which he wasn't quite sure of in the first place.

"So you could yell at me for it?" Raito grumbled tiredly, playing the part of the angry rebel.

"No, Raito, I… I wouldn't have yelled," reassured Soichiro.

"Oh, right, right," grumbled Raito acidly, "You would've locked me in my room, forbid me from leaving the house, taken away my computer and my television, raided my personal space, stripped me of my dignity and _then_ yelled about what a horrible son I was."

"Raito!" Soichiro swore, "Then what? What were you hoping to do? Were you just going to… bring him over to the house sometime and expect me to understand? Were you going to run off and leave your mother, your sister and I behind? You can't hide a secret like that from me forever!"

Oh yes. Yes he could.

"I'm sorry, Dad!" he yelled. Seriously, he wanted to get this damn thing over with as soon as possible. His headache was coming back. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, it's just…" and here he trailed off for dramatic emphasis, "I… I didn't know what you'd say. You'd be angry…"

"I'm not angry," growled Soichiro doubtfully, "Well, maybe I _am_ angry, but I'm angry because you tried to hide this from me."

Raito rolled his eyes.

Fantastic.

Was it just him, or was this turning into a typical conversation? Was it just him, or was he going to have to sit through half an hour of 'I wish you would have told me' and 'I'm not mad' and 'who is this guy anyway?'

Raito didn't want to hear it. He had a headache, he was extremely uncomfortable, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep. He sincerely wanted the side-effects of his medicine to subside soon so he could lucidly wander into the world and order Ryuzaki to name off his victims. He knew for a fact that his supply of dying criminals was soon to run out, so the quicker he could escape, the better.

This would prove to be tricky, Raito thought, as his father would undoubtedly be watching him like a hawk.

He needed a few drinks, a cold shower, and a nice, amiable dinner-date with Teru.

Preferably including another drink or two.

Or five.

You know, just to put his current migraine into perspective.

"So…" Soichiro sighed, shuffling his feet slightly, "What is this man's name?"

"You should already know that," Raito grumbled.

"Alright then," Soichiro returned the grumble, "tell me about him."

"I'll just _leave_ now, I suppose," Ryuzaki grumbled, having been set into a dreadfully foul mood at a hint of Mikami's name. He growled obscenities to himself and slunk off to nowhere in particular.

Seeing as how his biggest distraction was gone, Raito searched for a sentence to begin with. "Well, he's… nice," Raito hummed in a roundabout way. He didn't want to talk about his 'secret crush' any more than Ryuzaki wanted to hear about him. Soichiro gazed very intently into the brunette's eyes and he found himself involuntarily looking away. Being 'found out' was embarrassing in itself, even if Raito counted on his family discovering him sometime.

"Go on," Soichiro pushed.

"He's… I don't know, dad," Raito racked his brain. "He's in college, like me, he's smart, and I can _talk_ to him."

"You can talk to me," mumbled Soichiro.

"Not the same thing, dad," deadpanned Raito.

"Right, right…"

"Anyway, like I said, he's nice. After I told him what happened between you and me over the phone, he let me stay at his house. We watched movies and talked. You know, stuff like that."

"He didn't try to… take advantage of you?"

Raito groaned and pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes. "No, dad," he gritted his teeth, "We didn't do _anything_. Just kissed. That's all."

Soichiro frowned, perplexed and abashed. "And you felt okay with this?" he asked dumbly.

"No, Dad," deadpanned Raito, "I felt absolutely _horrible_. That's why I did it."

"Don't get smart with me," his father warned dangerously.

"Sorry, sorry," Raito growled irritably. He just wanted to close his eyes and sleep the week off.

Unfortunately, his father wouldn't allow him to do that. Another question materialized from the cocktail of the atmosphere and landed on Raito's aching head like a brick. "Do I get to meet him?" Soichiro hinted commandingly.

Raito blew a puff of air at his bangs. What an eventful day that would be. Teru would have an anxiety attack. Nonetheless, Raito was inclined to answer that yes, his father would meet him sometime. Whether this meeting of his was to be held in the near or far future, Raito was at loath to disclose, but when his father nudged him ever-so-authoritatively, the brunette was forced to agree to arrange a get-together as soon as humanly possible.

Shit.

This wasn't going to end well.

----

When L waltzed into the room later, he was met by the rhythmic sighing of a sleeping Kira. He glanced at a slit between the blankets and the visible sliver of the boy beneath it and marveled at how quickly a mortal could fall asleep. Raito had surrounded himself once again in blankets and was now more or less peacefully oblivious of the outside world.

One who was not afforded the fortune of peaceful sleep was now pacing back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room. Raito's father sported large dark-circles under his eyes and L was jealous for a moment that they might have out-darkened his own. Mr. Yagami hadn't been sleeping well since Raito's last escapade. He occupied his time with the surveillance of his son and his occupation in the NPA.

L pitied him.

He must've been trying as hard as he could to be an ideal father to a secretive serial killer.

Therein lay the problem.

L knew for a fact that Raito was a force of nature which couldn't be bottled or bound.

Except, perhaps, while he was asleep.

L hummed and somersaulted to the back of the sofa, where he watched quietly as Raito's fluffy fortress rose and fell. Fluffy fortress… hah. He might as well have been talking about a five-year-old girl with a runny nose hiding beneath her favorite, felted princess blanket.

Boy, if Raito heard that one.

A sleepy sigh drifted upward from the aforementioned boy's cocoon of cotton. The blankets flattened as Raito stretched and groaned.

"Nnnhhhh…"

Soichiro cast a bloodshot eye in his son's general direction before resuming his pacing. Raito emerged from his burrow of blankets and cast a narrow, bleary eye at the world around him. In sighting L, he sleepily stretched his arms and rolled over. L noticed in curious alarm that his shirt was sticking to his skin. In the consideration of the state of that shirt, L ventured an observation as to the quality of the rest of Raito's visible self.

Raito's shirt was indeed stuck to his back, and in good company. His glowing auburn hair appeared to shimmer wetly in a dusty, lackluster shade of brown. His brow glistened with perspiration and held captive a few oily bits of the aforementioned hair. L could tell merely by looking at the puffy, pale state of Raito's hands that they were cold and clammy. His groans had grown more frequent as the week sailed on and the suspicion rose in L that something was, indeed, amiss here.

Raito could no longer die of a high fever, but that didn't mean a shinigami couldn't give him one.

An obvious sign that a shinigami had been involved was that Raito hadn't asked for help regarding the state of his health. The usually practical mortal refused to ask for assistance from any member of his family, and his family was taking no action in the interest of intervention.

In short, L was acutely suspicious, and he was quite eager to let Raito know.

"Ask your father for a bag of ice," commanded L to the sickeningly unhappy brunette. Raito glared up at him in a grievous manner, eyes dull and burned out with fever.

L frowned. "Or a glass of water. Now," he demanded relentlessly.

A glimmer ignited briefly in Raito's eyes which suggested that his thoughts had crossed L's a while back and he had deemed the situation to be entirely hopeless. L caught wind of his reasoning, being that he could no longer die of a fever.

Ah, but this is exactly what the shinigami wanted him to think, was it not?

L was beginning to conceive that these hell-spawned death-gods harbored more mental substance than they let on.

He informed Raito of this immediately.

"That's just what the shinigami want you to think, Raito-kun," L mused. "They want to lure your attention to your fever and not some other means of underlying destruction. They could be killing you a variety of ways, dehydration being one. Excessive heat can cause a variety of-"

"Dad," grumbled Raito, "could you get me a glass of water?"

L grinned at his persuasive ability.

Soichiro grunted an affirmative and trudged into the kitchen in search of a glass.

As his father made himself scarce, Raito ventured a glance at the digital clock on the cable unit beneath his television. He squinted, then mumbled, "Ten already?"

Soichiro made his way into the living room, glass in hand. Wordlessly, he handed Raito his water and similarly wordlessly, Raito took it. He then requested a few fever-reducers or a handful of whatever pain medication happened to be on hand at the moment.

Silently as before, Soichiro stumbled off. Raito and L both watched him leave. More to the room than to himself, the brunette mumbled, "Wonder if he's gotten any sleep."

"No," replied L factually, "I believe your father has gotten around eight hours of sleep since your outburst. I also suppose that he'll be leaving for another midnight shift soon."

The mini-death then had a peculiar revelation, only having a substantial bit to do with anything. "You know, Raito-kun," he hummed, curling his toes about the back of the sofa, "Once the cameras are out of this house, we should follow your father to work."

Raito gave him a look clearly communicating that he thought L was out of his mind.

"Oh no," L remarked calmly, "I'm quite serious. It would be a thrill, would it not? You could hop in the trunk of his car and see where on earth he goes every day."

'You're insane,' glared Raito flatly.

"I suppose you're right," mused L, "After all, heaven knows what will happen should anyone see you."

Raito rolled his eyes, groaned as he'd become accustomed to doing, and lay there pathetically until his father returned. Raito eyed the array of color-coded pills that his father had so dutifully brought him. L joined him, critically examining each and every pill for what it was.

Fever-reducer, Aspirin, sleeping pill (Oh yes, since Raito _hadn't _been sleeping all day), nameless pills, and, much to Raito's sardonic delight, another lovely tablet of schizophrenia medication.

Raito gave L the eye.

L gave Raito the eye.

In short, it had crossed through both of their minds at much the same time that some strange, deadly interaction could have occurred between the various pills. Raito broke eye contact and addressed his father, asking if all of these things could be taken at once.

"Yes," was all he said, but L secretly suspected him of being tired beyond logical reasoning. Raito visibly considered the same suspicion and came to the conclusion that caution would benefit him. Disdainfully, Raito accepted the handful of drugs and picked his schizo-pill out from the fray. He eyed it narrowly.

As if he were a contestant on a freakishly disgusting game show and the pill was a live scorpion that he had to eat in order to advance, Raito stuffed the thing into his mouth, grabbed the glass of water, and gulped it.

Soichiro demanded to see the evidence of the pill's disappearance. Raito stuck his tongue out at him. Since the old man was tired and vexed, he accepted the pill's vanishing act and demanded that Raito chug the others. This happened quite uneventfully and for a second, L was concerned that these pills were _indeed_ poisonous when mixed. A complaint floated halfway through his vocal cords, but stuck there when the offending medication found its way down Raito's throat.

L gave him a goggle-eyed glare and barked, "Raito-kun! You're in danger!"

Raito gave no one any clue that he'd heard. He merely thanked his father and turned over. Soichiro hovered there for a minute, unsure of what to do, when he suddenly remembered what he'd been doing before Raito called for help.

He paced.

As Soichiro walked off, an interesting event occurred. Raito shuffled about beneath his blankets and L witnessed something nearly imperceptively being stuck beneath the cushions of the couch.

Ah, indeed.

Clever boy.

Raito probably knew the combined effects of the three common medicines and thus deemed them useful and safe, while he counted the drug that initiated his misery among the ones he didn't need. He simply stuck it under his tongue, knowing that his father's mind was too preoccupied with other things to think of asking him to lift it. After he swallowed the helpful pills and his father had left, he spit his expensive prescription medication out and concealed it expertly beneath the cushions.

"Sly," remarked L with flat detachment.

Raito nodded absently and withdrew beneath his blankets once again.

A minute of boredom converted to a minute of consideration for L. Upon this minute of consideration came an observation, and upon this observation L noted that it was unlike a feverish mortal to surround itself in warmth.

Oddly, L addressed the mortal.

"Raito-kun? If I may ask, why is it that you, whose temperature has gone through the proverbial roof, insist on surrounding yourself in things which will only make you more uncomfortable?"

The brunette sighed something which sounded suspiciously like 'hmmmcooolllldddd…'

This alarmed L, who found the revelation startlingly unexpected. He racked his brain for an answer and stumbled unceremoniously upon one which was further from the front of his mind than it should have been. The answer was this: that, simply, mortals got cold during periods of high fever. Due to the misplaced sense of urgency coursing through L's body, he couldn't discern the cause of this strange reaction, and instead conducted a vote between he, himself, and him, who unanimously agreed that Raito was in some oblique form of critical danger.

"Raito-kun," L muttered, not quite registering that the mortal could not conduct a proper conversation with him, "I have reason to believe that this fever of yours is nothing to be ignored."

Raito snorted at him.

"Yes," growled the psychopomp while drawing his brow earthward in a scowl, "I know you've been through a fever. Though I suspect, as I told you before, that there may be something more to it."

Raito bothered to slither out of his blanket and glare as if to ask _what_, exactly, was the problem.

"Dying of a fever is very general," noted L, "You could have died of a number of things by means of this fever. Take insanity, for example. You could've lay there for any number of hours, allowing the heat to quickly eat away at your brain until you were nothing but a mindless vegetable, upon which you would eventually die of brain damage. Another example: Perhaps your fever, being a bodily defense, was deployed in an effort to rid your body of a pathogen it had contracted earlier in the day. Chances are good that you would have died from said pathogen, yet my appearance saved you somehow."

Raito was giving him a leery look which suggested that he was not at all happy with his sudden insecurity.

"You've been warned," L remarked.

Raito made a vague, inexplicable gesture with his hand, which, incidentally, L interpreted as a sign to come closer. He stuck his head halfway into Raito's fortress and the brunette grumbled incoherently, "hrmmmppphh… hmmm… hhhnggghhh…"

L heard, "Why, Ryuzaki, would you kindly check the couch for any bugs? I'd be ever-so-grateful."

But he knew it sounded more like, "Get your mini-death ass in gear and look for those goddamn bugs."

Ah, Raito and his divine, queenly wrath.

"Of course, your highness," humored L witlessly. Raito gave him a casually-aimed kick in the shin and L hopped away to regain his balance.

Wobbling precariously on one foot, L grumbled to himself and set about searching the creases of the sofa for bugs.

It was a long and tedious search, but alas, L found none on either the couch or the surrounding furniture. He informed Raito with an annoyed, "The coast is clear."

Raito gestured obscurely with one arm in a yawn-like manner. L snuck up to the foot of the couch and listened.

----

"You bitch."

The growl was quite toneless and lacking in depth, but Raito quite liked it that way and thought that his pitch generously suggested the dry anger rising from the penumbra of an irritating week.

Ryuzaki quirked an inquisitive eyebrow. "Pardon?" he sought.

"When you told me that I was immune to death-by-fever, I should have known that you were only telling me _half_ of the story!" Raito shrilled in a whisper.

"Well, shinigami aren't very specific, you see," Ryuzaki defended just quickly enough, "So the possibility of an intricate, pinpoint death did not appeal to me at the moment. Due to the existence of human Anti-Kiras, as you call them, I cannot discount this now. They could very well be experimenting with specific methods to kill you."

"Perfect," Raito growled.

"Do not be alarmed," reassured Ryuzaki with calm radiance, "You have me here to save you, Raito-kun, remember?"

Incidentally, this did nothing for the mortal's mood.

"Indeed," muttered Raito.

Ryuzaki's voice audibly drooped in an irritated sigh before Raito twitched at the sharp feeling through one arm of his shirt.

Ryuzaki had bitten his wrist.

And now Raito was angry about it.

He attempted to sweep his arm regally out of Ryuzaki's grasp, but the mini-death held it still. Raito jerked it violently to the side once or twice, but Ryuzaki's hold never faltered. Frustrated, the brunette gave Ryuzaki exactly what he wanted and brooded without moving.

For about four seconds.

Raito gave Ryuzaki the slip by means of a spasmodic, sideways buck of the hips which sent him careening beautifully off of the couch. Raito smirked through his single vantage point as the surprised mini-death muttered obscenities about his behavior. The mortal was about to fire a wry comment into the fray when, suddenly, he noticed something.

His fever had dropped.

Stunned into momentary silence, he considered how queer the situation was.

Ryuzaki presently picked himself off of the floor and whined, "What a positively _pernicious_ princess you are."

Raito, however, was not in the mood.

"My fever's gone," he announced.

Ryuzaki's lips made as if to form yet another insult before falling lopsided in a confused frown. "Gone?" he puzzled. Raito gave him a queer look before confirming that it was, indeed, gone. His clothes still stuck to him, but his skin had dried off. He wasn't sweating anymore and neither did he feel those unpleasant chills that he knew weren't supposed to be there.

"Well that's definitely odd," remarked Ryuzaki with an averted eye and a thumb to his lips. "Just like that?"

"Just like that," confirmed Raito strangely.

"Hmm…" mused the mini-death, "perhaps I should bite you more often."

"No," denied Raito.

"Pity," mulled Ryuzaki, "Though perhaps I was right. A shinigami may have initiated that fever of yours." He then fixed his gaze on the ceiling and narrowed his panda-eyes. "What were they trying to kill you with, I wonder?"

What indeed, if Ryuzaki was right?

On top of that, why? Why? Why on earth, after so many days, weeks, _months_ of hiding, did the shinigami try to kill him again? Or… though Raito was at loath to admit it, perhaps Ryuzaki had merely been doing an exceptional job at warding death from his door.

An enlightened gleam flashed through Ryuzaki's shadowed eyes as if an epiphany had suddenly spread its wings and taken flight. "Your pills," remarked the psychopomp. "They were using your pills."

"I don't understand how a few pain-relievers and sleeping pills could do anything serious," groaned Raito.

"Neither do I," sighed Ryuzaki, "but the fact that your fever broke is evidence that it _was_ required, but is no longer needed."

Raito grinned gleefully. No drug interactions for him! It almost made Raito want to go up to his medicine cabinet, grab all of the pills, and-

No.

Just no.

He didn't know what _specific_ reaction may have killed him.

Oh brother.

Raito just wanted the world to stay static for once… He wanted to live in the comfort that He. Could. Not. Die.

Damn mini-death and his stupid revelations…

Nevertheless, Raito, who was considerably more comfortable in his own body and more ill at ease with the situation, settled cautiously into his spot on the couch and waited for something slightly less exciting to happen.

He didn't have to wait long, as his father suddenly crept into the picture and asked him how he was doing. Raito replied as monotonously as he could that his fever was gone and he was feeling much better. Soichiro nodded at this and wordlessly creaked across the floor.

And then, silence.

Having retired until midnight, if Ryuzaki's predictions were to be believed, Soichiro snuck off to bed and Raito didn't hear from him for the rest of the night.

Ryuzaki, however, was not as easily gotten rid of.

"So, Kira," droned the indifferent mini-death, "feeling better?"

Raito yawned in response.

"I see," mumbled Ryuzaki with a thumb to his lips. He scaled the far wall seemingly on a whim and hung there, half on the ceiling and half off. Dismally, he asked, "Feeling up to another round of righteous judgment, O Great Death?"

Raito grinned at him.

Ryuzaki rolled his eyes.

----

So it happened after Raito stopped taking his drugs that he had missed his first week's worth of college classes. So it happened that Raito had been swamped with busywork and the prying inquiries of his father. So it happened that Raito was very unhappy with his medication situation.

So it happened that Raito had deviously snuck himself out of the house by means of his bedroom window, a jacket, and twelve coat hangers.

And so it happened that L was right there beside him when he rang the doorbell to Mikami's apartment.

Needless to say, L was not happy.

Raito fiddled with the hems of his sleeves as clinking sounds emanated from the door. It was dark-thirty at night and L wondered vaguely what two dedicated college students were doing out of bed at that ungodly hour.

Looking prim as usual, the Mortal-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named drew the door back suspiciously and blinked incredulously as what to his wondering eyes should appear, but Kira with a heartwarming six-pack of beer.

Beer.

Try as L may have, Raito insisted that he discover the name of the single operator of the local liquor store and the mini-death could not deny him. L's deepest condolences went to the family of Nagatsuka-san, who would eventually die in some strange, terribly unjust manner, but not before he amiably tossed Raito a free six pack with complete disregard for personal identification.

Mikami blinked once, twice, and dared to repeat the action a third time before staring strangely at the fateful, clinking, and shiny aluminum beer cans. He glanced back up at Raito, who was still smiling in the most disturbingly friendly way, and then back down at the six pack. He glanced up one last time before remarking oddly, "You're up late."

"So're you," grinned Raito.

Silence once more. The tall, dark, geeky mortal raised his eyebrows in a devil-may-care fashion and pointed out, "You're underage."

"I'm stressed out," Raito smiled before airily slipping past Mikami and effectively letting himself in. L followed at a close proximity, dodging the tall mortal's arm and the door at the same time. As the brunette blew past him, Mikami breathed, "Then come in."

"Really?" Raito sighed quiescently.

"Oh yes," Mikami hummed as Raito sashayed into the room, "By all means…"

L glanced gloomily about the living room once again, which was in much the same condition as he had left it before. Mikami had thrown an afghan here and a bag of chips there, but other than that, the room hadn't changed.

The many colors and sounds of baseball flickered energetically across the television screen and evidence of a popcorn-binge lay strewn about the foot of the couch in a contained kernel-apocalypse. Raito behaved as if he had no inclination as to the state of the room or the noise of the television. He merely invited himself to deposit the beer cans on the coffee table while spinning sideways onto Mikami's couch and lying there.

The dark-haired mortal poked his head into sight and examined the scene with a critical eye. He watched as Raito heaved himself into one corner of the couch and deftly plucked one of his cans of beer out of its plastic ring. The brunette eyed his terrestrial companion languidly and motioned him over with a suggestive, "I hope you have more in your fridge, because this isn't going to last me through the night."

L knew very well that six beers would last him _well_ into the night.

Very well indeed.

Mikami blinked before accepting that Raito wasn't leaving and settling in a seat beside him. L's nerves blazed and he bit down on his thumb to control himself.

Here Raito was, damaging his brain and his liver. This wasn't what boiled L's blood, though. It was that Raito would rather blow his mind in _Mikami's_ company.

This was where L regained control of his mental superiority. Of course Raito didn't want L to be his drinking buddy. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, the mini-death didn't exist. Raito would be _damned_ if he was going drinking with a man that didn't exist. L also understood the brunette's need to escape his house, and the other mortal's apartment was a good excuse to do so.

So, in the interest of being logically sound, L sat back and watched the brunette's antics. Besides, seeing Raito drunk would be quite the rewarding experience.

----

Raito was thoroughly surprised at himself. Of all things he could have done, he hadn't imagined sneaking out of his bedroom and making a beer-run to Teru's. All things considered, he was probably being monitored by all of the cameras in his room and _someone_ was out there looking for him.

Hell may care.

No one would come barging into Teru's apartment simply because it would be a blatant announcement that Raito was being watched. A and W, if they were to blame, would not take such an obvious course of action.

The top of one can of beer popped open with a gratifying hiss. Raito's eyes radiated confidence as he breathed in the sensual smell of fermented grain.

Grain.

That was what it was, wasn't it?

Logically, Raito reasoned, grain never hurt anyone. Bread was nice, ramen was dandy, and if Ryuzaki's obsessions were to be believed, cake was divine. Regardless, beer was widely regarded as one of the foulest drinks, having turned men into pigs and pigs into beautiful women.

In Raito's case, these pigs may very well have turned into beautiful men.

It was in this notion that Raito suffered an incidental bout of pre-indulgatory-dilemma, which may or may not have been a real word. If said drink could turn men into pigs, then Raito was bound to be squealing and rolling on the floor after emptying a few cans. If said drink could turn pigs into beautiful men, then Ryuzaki would be looking mighty friendly by morning.

Hah hah.

Oh, how enjoyable it was to poke unprovoked fun at Ryuzaki.

With that, Raito threw caution to the wind and chugged half of the can in one gulp.

His leisurely enjoyed glass of beer earlier that week could not have prepared him for the sudden onslaught that was the blaze of well-made alcohol. He coughed once or twice into his fist before blowing a puff of relief at his bangs.

Observant as ever, a frank voice sounded to Raito's side. It said, "Not a seasoned drinker, are you?"

"Nope," Raito coughed into his fist again, "Not at all."

"Well then," remarked Teru calmly, "may I enquire as to the occasion?"

"I told you. I'm stressed out."

"This is how you deal with stress?"

"This is how I'm dealing with it tonight."

"That's a good way to get yourself killed."

Something stiffened icily near the recliner. Raito knew instantly that it was Ryuzaki and equally instantly what had set him off.

Bah.

Shinigami trying to kill him twice in a week? The chances were slim.

Raito didn't need anything else to worry about.

"So what are you stressed out about?" Teru asked innocently, snatching a beer of his own.

"Oh, nothing," Raito hummed, "only my entire life, which has been ruined by my father and the rest of my family. Oh!" Raito slapped his knee, "and my pills. Did I mention I have pills?"

"No, I don't think you did," the dark-haired man ventured cautiously.

"Well, I have pills," blazed Raito. "That's it."

"You're sailing uncharted waters here, Raito-kun," the mini-death's voice warned. Raito subconsciously waved him off. Ryuzaki didn't have to worry. If Teru was ever going to meet his parents, he'd find out anyway.

What did Raito care?

In a few minutes, he was going to be drunk off his ass.

Wasted.

What better time to confess all his faults?

Of course, this was also a good opportunity to confess to the world that he was Kira. This, Raito was anxious about. He'd have to keep track of what he said…

Maybe getting drunk wasn't such a bright idea after all.

…

He eyed the spider-like mini-death brooding at the opposite end of the room and grinned.

What did he have Ryuzaki for?

He'd prevent Raito from blowing his cover.

It was just a little _trust_ exercise. Oh, Ryuzaki would leap at the prospect. Raito gulped his second round of beer a little more carefully, all the while doe-eyeing Ryuzaki in the most endearing way he could muster.

The mini-death's eyes twitched as he quirked an eyebrow and shook his head incredulously.

Raito stuck his bottom lip out at him.

"Oh, bucket of shoes…" swore Ryuzaki.

Raito doubled over and burst out in hysterical laughter.

Christ… his beer… he was going to choke on it. Much to the amusement of Teru, Raito pieced himself back together and giggled incessantly over the arm of the couch.

Through his laughter, he heard Teru calling his name in the best of humors. Raito righted himself against the couch cushions and giggled. He could tell by the goofy half-smile on Teru's face that he was trying not to laugh. "Raito," he snorted before holding his hand in front of the brunette's face, "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Five," Raito announced proudly. Only one beer! He wasn't drunk yet.

"Well," sighed Teru with a tilt of the head, "Your brain's still working, I think. Can I ask what was so funny?"

"Oh, nothing," sighed Raito as he finished his first can of beer and dove for the second one.

"Raito-kun," Teru's voice intruded quasi-urgently, "Don't you think you should wait a while?"

"No," Raito blazed, "We're getting drunk! And if we're getting drunk, we're going to do it proper." He popped his second top and raised the glimmering can of beer on high. "To invincibility!" he cheered before downing another stinging inferno of bitterness.

"To invincibility," Teru agreed.

Raito downed his second can of beer in no time. It registered sometime through his fumbling with the third pop top that his hand-eye coordination had gone to hell. He kept… missing. Stupid pop top… moving all the time.

Raito then had a revelation.

He was intoxicated.

Marvelous, how things moved when one was intoxicated…

The prospect both thrilled Raito and scared him, along with a third emotion which had no name in particular and had no clear idea of what to do with itself. The brunette had never _ever_ been truly drunk before, and he wondered what it was like. It was like an adventure! Only… maybe he was going to do something stupid.

…

Raito laughed again.

Raito? Stupid? Meh heh heh… Hoo… Hah! Heh hah hah! Stupid! Like that could ever happen…

…hic…

'Sides, there was Mr. Panda over there who could help him _aaaannnyy_ time he needed him.

…

Still. Raito needed to focus. Kira didn't go insane when he was drunk. Drunk felt nice, but Raito couldn't let himself get too caught up.

…Why was he doing this again?

Oh, right. Stress.

Raito took a swig of his beer.

Stress and those goddamn pills. And school. Fuck school. Raito was already as smart as he needed to be. Umpteen more years of education wasn't going to help much. But quitting school would be too much. He could be insane and disobedient, but there was no way he was failing college.

He couldn't fail school. It was… school.

School was what made him what he was. School invented grades. Grades made Raito famous. That was all most people knew him for, after all. Plus, if Raito wasn't such a smart cookie, Kira would be screwed!

Halfway through his thought, he realized that the world was tilting.

"Raito!" chuckled a familiar voice, "Raito, you're falling over…"

"_I'm_ not falling over," Raito corrected smartly, "_The world_ is falling over."

"Right, right," sighed Mikami, "Now don't you think you've had enough to drink tonight?"

"No," said Raito, "I'm not drunk yet."

"Oh, I think you're drunk enough."

"No," denounced Raito with a punctual turn of the head.

"Raito," deadpanned Teru, "You're drunk."

Raito frowned and thought a moment. Yes. He was drunk. It hadn't occurred to him two seconds before, but the sequence of events didn't make sense to him, as he knew he was drunk, then forgot, and now he knew again.

Good God…

Raito needed to get his act together.

Focus.

"Raito-kun," hummed a calm voice from the top of the sofa. Raito squinted. It couldn't have been Teru's voice, because when the brunette checked last, Teru didn't normally sit on the backs of sofas.

Ryuzaki.

Right.

"Your eyes are misty, Raito-kun," observed Ryuzaki's disembodied voice, "I advise against drinking any more alcohol. You may do something regrettable, and that would make me sad."

Raito didn't want to make Ryuzaki sad.

So he had to focus. He took a deep, refreshing breath.

Okay.

He was in Teru's apartment, in his living room, and he was on his fourth round of beer. He hadn't mentioned anything about Kira yet, which was good, and he hadn't announced his schizophrenia to Teru. The room wasn't swaying, _Raito_ was swaying. The pop tops weren't moving, the calibration in Raito's ocular nerves was off. If he didn't want to get himself in trouble, he needed to think things through.

…God, it was hot in that room, though. Maybe he needed to take some clothes off or something. Raito reached for the lapels of his jacket only to discover that they weren't there. Odd. He must've taken his jacket off earlier. He didn't remember doing that…

Anyhow, there his shirt was, clinging to his skin, and the brunette decided with no further mental discussion that it would be removed. Despite what he thought to be a surprised groan from Mikami, Raito pulled his shirt over his head and wriggled out of it.

So there he was, stripping on his not-boyfriend's couch, and failing to feel the results of his efforts. He still felt hot as hell.

There was something nagging near one of his ears and Raito realized disapprovingly that it was Ryuzaki telling him 'For God's sake, Raito-kun! Put your clothes back on!'

At least Raito _thought _that was what he said. He heard, "Blah, blah, blah, blah."

Kind of.

Only less coherent.

Raito sat on the couch, oblivious to the commercials on the television, the glazed look in Teru's eyes, and the incessant prattling of one agitated mini-death. He swam through his options, searching for one which could explain why he wasn't cooling off.

Suddenly, something came to him.

In an instantaneous moment of panic, Raito stiffened and recalled that his failure to open a window when he had a fever could have resulted in his death.

…He needed some fresh air.

Now.

Wobbling, Raito swayed precariously off of the couch and onto one foot. Teru peered at him and asked, "Where are you going?"

Raito's brain said, 'Well, I'm walking out to your balcony, of course.'

Raito's lips said, "Hmm gonna' walk ou-side, mmkay?"

He stumbled elegantly over to the sliding glass doors and fumbled with the latch. First, it was over here… then it was over there… God, Raito. Focus.

Since he couldn't grab it with one hand, he felt along the sides of the door until by sheer happenstance his fingers fell on top of it. He twisted the brass bolt and yanked one door aside.

He was instantly assaulted by the nicest breeze he'd ever felt.

Raito grinned, eyes easily past half-mast, and zombied his way onto the cold concrete of the balcony. Something jumped off of the couch and shouted, "No, Raito!" but it didn't sound like Teru.

As Raito was three fourths of the way out the door, he wondered why on earth Ryuzaki wouldn't want him to walk outside. Through the alcohol sloshing around in his head, he attempted to formulate a hypothesis.

This was where logic made a comeback.

Raito realized quite soberly that alcohol didn't serve to make one's body temperature rise. As a matter of fact, he was probably going to freeze. Second of all, Teru's balcony was looking suspiciously shiny, as if ice were lurking somewhere, just waiting for him to sail into it. Why ice would form without bad weather, Raito would never know. Thirdly, said balcony and said ice were quite a distance from the ground.

Were Raito to lose his balance, a trip across the edge of existence would be in order.

Raito didn't want to die.

Really, he didn't.

So he backpedaled into the house and cocked his head at the lights on the building across the street. His thoughts returned to the ice. Chances were, his eyeballs thought it would be hilarious to trick him into thinking that there was, in fact, ice everywhere. Just like they wanted him to think pop tops had minds of their own.

On the off chance that there was ice on the balcony with no weather to put it there, a disconcerting thought came to mind.

Something wanted to kill him.

Twice in one week.

"What's wrong, Raito?" asked the voice that sounded like Teru's. To this, the brunette swayed on his toes and replied that: He'd had it with people trying to kill him. He wanted a nap.

The taller man did not question his reasoning, much to Raito's relief, and went about fixing his couch in case Raito wouldn't mind staying there.

"Thank God," muttered an annoying Ryuzaki voice in the brunette's left ear. Raito wheeled precariously on one heel and glared unevenly into his eyes. Said eyes blinked once or twice. Ryuzaki then slipped a thumbnail between his teeth and said, "When you're sober, we will talk."

Raito muttered at him and flopped onto Teru's couch.

----

Well _that_ was a disaster.

L didn't think he'd gone through more fingernails in his entire life. There Kira was, about as sober as a keg of rum, walking around half-naked, and nearly getting himself killed. Raito was a mess as of late and L didn't like it.

The brunette probably had reasons behind his actions, but L didn't care. He needed to stop being so careless.

The Witless Wonder was peacefully beyond consciousness at that moment in time and had adopted a strange, sprawled position on Mikami's couch. He lay on his stomach, head and shoulders drooping off of the seat cushions, feet propped up against one arm of the chair. Blankets were everywhere. Only one covered Raito up, and even then his feet were left out in the cold.

But no snoring.

God forbid Kira should display at least _one more example_ of human weakness.

L sat there until morning and never once did he hear anything more than a sigh.

Sunrise, however, was a different slice of cake.

Once again, L found that Raito's morning was full of 'nnnnggghhhh.' The brunette sat up in bed with a painful groan and the heels of his palms dug far into his eye sockets. L bit his lip. Poor boy should've known better.

Raito's hair was kinked at odd angles and his clothes were in a similar degree of disarray. No amount of ironing could hope to erase the mountains and ravines in his pant legs. His shirt was still gone and the brunette shivered as if he were missing it.

Raito then shut his eyes again and complained to L that the sun was too loud. L replied that alcohol seemed constantly to make the sun more annoying and that the curtains were closed anyway, so there wasn't much he could do. Raito complained at him again and again until eventually L learned to block the brunette's voice completely.

Raito noticed that he was being ignored. Stubbornly, he stuck his nose in the air and set about rising out of his spot on the couch and assessing the damage in Mikami's bathroom mirror.

Ah, but the pain was too much.

Raito leaned heavily against the wall and massaged his eyes with his thumbs.

L observed this with some degree of pity. Though his headache was his own fault, L couldn't help but sympathize. Raito was pathetic and L felt sorry for him.

He waited patiently as the brunette splashed cold water on his face. After a moment of glaring balefully at the bathroom mirror, Raito remarked, "Well isn't this _dandy_?"

"Quite," deadpanned L, "and I suggest that this never happen again."

Raito snorted at him.

The mini-death quirked a dryly inquisitive, invisible eyebrow. Raito's golden eyes bored holes into his own for a few seconds before the brunette huffed, turned around, and refused to admit that the ordeal was his fault.

Of course.

L felt confident in the knowledge that Raito could not be forced to confide anything to him, but he figured he'd push the brunette off of the edge anyhow. "Whose intelligent idea led you to this mess, I wonder?"

Raito pulled one sleeve over his hand and smacked L upside the jaw.

L staggered backward in shock. He rubbed at his jaw before raising both eyebrows in indifferent disgust.

The nerve…

L hadn't deserved that.

Raito was being a moody bastard and, if the mini-death's conscience was to be believed, he deserved a well-aimed kick in the kneecaps.

L's conscience spoke.

L listened.

So, without much ado at all, L dropped to the floor and nailed both of Raito's legs with one jean-clad shin. The mortal yelped painfully and lost his balance, careening unceremoniously into the corner of the sink.

The mini-death stood up into his usual slouch and eyed Raito with blatant dissatisfaction. He really wished the two of them could actually _touch _each other, and not for the reason he'd initially thought. He would have thoroughly enjoyed hooking Raito's leg in the crook of one foot and sending him spinning into the wall. He would have relished a yelp of surprise should L sink his teeth into one arm. Raito's howls of surprise when the mini-death experimentally latched into his neck were horrifying at the time, but currently, L would have jumped for joy at the amount of damage he could do _without_ a sheet between his teeth and Raito's skin.

Then again, if the two of them could touch each other, Raito's favorite card would come into play.

He could deck L with one swift punch to the face.

This, the mini-death did not look forward to.

As if he hadn't just been floored by a kick, Raito righted himself and casually flicked at an imaginary speck of dust on his sleeve. L could tell by his thin-lipped expression that Raito was suffering more pain than he intended to let on, but the mini-death's compassionate streak had ended. If Raito had the headache of the century and a sore leg to accompany it, then so be it.

The brunette excused himself from the room and marched stiffly down the hall. He then adopted a familiar position on the sofa, once again mumbling and lamenting his pain.

L sat there for a while, on the corner of the couch, and sighed. "I am well aware of your peculiar actions these past few weeks," the mini-death remarked, "but this is by far one of your worst."

"I agree," moaned Raito.

L blinked. Now this was new. "You agree?" he clarified.

Raito sighed grudgingly and nudged the bridge of his nose into the crook of one elbow. "Next time I think of something that stupid, slap me, please."

"Wouldn't that make you angry?"

"It might."

"Alright then, but if you retaliate, I reserve my right to self-defense."

"Are you saying you _expect _me to do something stupid again?"

"Quite."

"Bastard."

"That makes two of us."

The argument ended there. L was satisfied and Raito was satisfied, if a bit achy. As a matter of fact, the mini-death expected nothing more to be said between them that morning, but he was surprised when Raito offered yet another chance at conversation.

"You think the shinigami are out to get me again?"

L thought for a moment. Yes, he knew for a fact that the shinigami were once again feeling vengeful as ever. The ice on the balcony last night was proof of that. He answered Raito's inquiry with a plain, "Yes."

"So there really was ice outside?"

"Yes."

Raito sank back into his throw pillows with a muffled thud. "Well if that isn't _divine_," he grumbled sourly.

"One more tally on your leaderboard, I imagine," L offered in the interest of lightening Raito's mood.

It did the trick, as Raito ventured an amber peek at him and half-grinned. "I suppose."

The room went silent again, save for the faint ticking of a clock somewhere in the kitchen. Out of the blue, Raito hummed, "I wonder if they'll ever think of an imaginative way to kill me."

L tilted his head queerly and nibbled on a thumbnail. "And what would be imaginative to Raito-kun?"

"Maybe they'll cream me with a giant plate of spaghetti or something," Kira chuckled. L mused airily and rolled his eyes skyward. "If you're lucky, maybe a rum brewery will explode and you'll drown in it."

"Nah," dismissed Raito with a wave of the hand, "I've had enough of alcohol for one day. What if a giant monster busts out of the sewer or something and starts destroying the city?"

"Like Godzilla?"

"Like Godzilla."

"You want to be eaten by Godzilla?"

"Mothra, actually. That would be more far-fetched. Is that a problem?"

"Technically, yes. If the action is impossible, it will simply transfer to a heart attack in a death god's notebook, and you've already had one of those."

"It's not impossible. Nothing's impossible."

"Then you should be looking forward to dying in the most improbable way."

"Like a UFO dropping on my head?"

"Of course."

"Hmm… It should be shaped like a rice ball."

"What should?"

"The UFO."

"I reckon it should be made of rice as well."

"No, that would mean that I got smashed by a giant rice ball, not a UFO."

"Forgive me."

"Forgiven."

----

No sooner had Raito left the apartment than he was assaulted with the most excruciating nausea he'd ever experienced. Teru had been kind enough to offer him some painkillers and a friendly suggestion not to drink so much, but neither of them had done him any good. His head felt as if it was going to explode and his legs felt as if they were made of poorly molded steel.

The only recent triumph to his name had been that he'd been able to retain his logic while he was drunk. Granted, he probably hadn't been very drunk considering the amount of information he was able to recall now and then, but he'd been drunk nonetheless.

He resented Ryuzaki for kicking him earlier, but the mini-death had made up for it with his pleasant company and enlightening conversation. He definitely helped to lighten Raito's unease and for that, he couldn't complain.

One more uneasy event was yet to come and Raito yearned for a chance to bypass it in favor of running somewhere remote like Guatemala.

This event was another confrontation with his father, who had undoubtedly figured out that Raito hadn't been home that morning.

The brunette had turned his cell phone on that morning, wondering whether or not his father would attempt to get a hold of him. So far, the device hadn't made a sound, save for the occasional beep of a spontaneous text message. Raito ignored each one, being from various people he did _not_ want to be bothered by, so for the most part, Raito's phone went unanswered.

And then, the phone rang. Raito whipped it out of his back pocket and examined the number on the display. He didn't know it, but he figured the only one calling him that morning would have been his father. Listlessly and hopelessly, he sighed and flipped the phone open.

And this is what he heard:

"POPSICLE STICKS!!!"

The brunette went into shock for a moment, skipped a step, flinched, and knit his eyebrows together incredulously. What on earth…

"Alright, listen up. Not like you care, of course, because you're still a human, but… Orange pancake waterfall BOOM! Normally I don't talk this much, but since you can't hear me and you're my random number of the day, I'll make an exception. Talk talk talk! I don't talk because I think you'll listen, I TALK BECAUSE YOU CAN'T HEEEAAARRR MEEEEE!!! That's right, fucker. You can't hear me!"

"Woah! Hey! Time out!" Raito yelled against the screeching, nigh unintelligible prattle coming from his phone.

"WAYAYAYAYA- Hm?" the voice stopped in mid-holler, sounding profoundly confused.

"Would you stop yelling in my ear?" cursed an angry Raito. He knew he shouldn't have answered the phone…

"Hm? Yelling in your ear, you say?" Now the voice sounded surprised and marginally amused.

Raito cast a queer eye at Ryuzaki, who was nibbling on his thumb and scratching his ankle with one foot. The mini-death shrugged his shoulders uselessly. "Yeah," the brunette growled into the phone, "Now tell me, who the hell are you?"

"I'm no one in particular, though it should make no difference to you. You couldn't possibly be talking to me. What a strange coincidence."

"I _am_ talking to you, whoever you are," Raito yelled.

Silence reigned for a moment before the voice through the speaker sounded once more. "Hmm… so you _can_ hear me," the voice mused.

"Yes, dumbass," then Raito added to humor his irritation, "I'm bleeding from the ears, thank you. Now who the hell are you? Do I know you?"

"Of course not," the voice purred, "But I know you."

"That's a bit creepy," Raito deadpanned. At the drop of the word 'creepy,' Raito could practically see the smug grin dripping through the speaker of his cell phone.

"You're very interesting," the voice grinned, "Perhaps I should track you down and introduce myself."

Raito's eyebrows did back flips on his forehead. Though he was uneasy with yet another unknown stalker, he hid his fear well. "Of course," he shot back with voice like red velvet, "Always good to meet another fan."

The voice huffed a playful chuckle. Raito was feeling pretty confident in his suave manner of speech and the method by which he would deal with his second stalker. All his pride melted away, however, a split second before the conversation blinked itself away.

A very crafty laugh sounded just before the phone died.

"See you later, Kira."

----

Chibi Raito: Goddamn cliffhangers…

Chibi L: You're gay.

Chibi Raito: Am not! My name is Yagami! Ya-Ga-Mi!

Chibi L: You're sure it's not I'm-A-Gay?

Chibi Raito: Shut up, dammit!

Chibi L: We've found you out, Raito. Time to come out of the closet.

Chibi Raito: No. It's nice and warm in here. By the way, that's my name BACKWARDS. It's not me! It's me… backwards.

Chibi L: Oh, it's you alright, Raito-kun. It's you.

Me: Right. Well! Now that you've all read another chapter, it's time to review. You read it, now you might as well tell me what you thought. Constructive criticism, pointers, praise, and flames. I take them all. Oh, and by the way, L doesn't have wings. Sorry!

Chibi L: Indeed. I'd have to be an _angel_ for that to happen, but _noooo…_ No promotions for me.

Chibi Misa: Love it? Hate it? Want to get this rant over with so you can eat dinner? Review, review, review!


	14. And Then There Were None

**DS**

**Disclaimer: **Emma owns Light Cola and the RFI industry. I'm her self-dubbed vice-president.

Me: This program is brought to you by…

Chibi Misa: Light Cola! New, from RFI Inc! Only one calorie and it's going straight to your heart, giving you a cardiac arrest.

Chibi Raito: Now with fifty percent more JUSTICE!

Chibi L: Warning: this product may turn you into a psychotic serial killer with a god complex. RFI Inc. claims no responsibility for ridiculous and ultimately futile attempts at ridding the world of evil, nor do we claim responsibility for any heart-related diseases and/or deaths. Blame Kira.

Chibi Misa: Before you vanquish evil, vanquish your thirst with Light Cola! Light Cola, for the mental megalomaniac in you!

**D S 14**

Well, wasn't this _rotten_.

He'd gotten a call last week from a psycho, calling him 'Kira' and for a while, he threw a fit about that. In an assault of anxiety, he called the bastard back twenty times, but with no result at all. The idiot didn't even have an answering machine. He was probably calling from a public phone.

Raito then located his sanity, which had been hiding in a corner at the back of his mind, and thought to himself that there were only so many reasons the man called him 'Kira.' First off, the call could have been a trick by A and W to assess his reaction. Secondly, the call could have purely been a prank. Thirdly, the person in question could have had much more knowledge than Raito allowed the world to know.

Raito decided on the third. The call wasn't a prank or a trick by his enemies because, firstly, the caller kept insisting that he could not be heard. Secondly, he called Raito a human. Thirdly, without any evidence as to his identity, the man ruled Raito as Kira.

All in all, the situation sounded frighteningly familiar.

He'd been contacted by another Ryuzaki.

Another cakeivorous, obsessive, floating love-freak.

And Raito was not looking forward to meeting him.

So there he was, counting the ripples in the plastered ceiling of Halle's office, wondering whether or not they were sharp enough to impale someone with, and Halle wanted him to talk about his _feelings_.

_His feelings._

Raito had no feelings left.

"I have no feelings left."

"I'm certain you have feelings, Raito-kun. Tell me how you feel about your father."

"No."

"And why not?"

Raito would not allow Halle the satisfaction of an answer, be it productive to her cause or not. He wished, quite sincerely, that he was roaming downtown again, killing customers at fast-food restaurants. The way Kira saw it, they were dying of unusually slow cardiac arrest anyhow. Yesterday, he had Ryuzaki give him the names of five individuals, all of whom were currently committing dastardly crimes and paying the price.

Raito's new method of killing was proving quite efficient. Thirty deaths, which could not possibly be traced to him without a massive amount of tedious research and observation, had currently been achieved by Kira. If things continued to flow this smoothly, he wouldn't have to kill Raye Penber.

Of course, since he was Kira, it might've been amusing to kill Raye Penber anyway.

Halle's thick veil of eyelashes fell and her impeccably straight hair seemed to deflate like a pricked water balloon. "Yagami-kun, please stop being difficult. For your sake."

"For my sake?" he yawned without much enthusiasm at all.

"Yes," confirmed Halle, "I want to help you. That's the reason I'm here, you know."

"No," corrected Raito, "it's the reason _I'm_ here. Rather, it's the reason I was sent here against my will. _You're_ here because you have a doctorate in psychology and a paycheck coming every month."

"Oh my," murmured an unimpressed voice from the ceiling, "quite vengeful today aren't we, Kira?"

Raito ignored Ryuzaki.

He focused his attention just over Halle's shoulder. The blonde woman's chest heaved in a frustrated sigh, but she handled the situation the way she was paid to. Raito's insults rolled from her shoulders like rain on an umbrella and she continued berating him for another half hour.

The brunette, however, refused to participate in such a cruel and unusual act of punishment and therefore occupied the remainder of his stay keeping track of how many hairdos he saw through the window. He noticed with distaste that most of them were covered with hats. It _was _supposed to rain today, after all.

Under the guise of boredom, Raito shifted his focus to the ceiling in the interest of locating his faithful mini-death partner. Ryuzaki currently swung from the fluorescent ceiling lamp, dangling his arms in the direction of centrifugal force and making it well known to Raito just how unexciting the situation was. "You really should start acting like a model citizen," he grumbled, "because I refuse to endure another hour of this trivial 'psychology' nonsense."

Certainly.

And while he was at it, he would sprout a tail and do cartwheels from one corner to the other in a pair of red stilettos and an Armani suit.

Acting the God of Japanese Knowledge and Poise was far beyond Raito's ever-narrowing circle. Even normalcy, bland as it was, was out of the question. The brunette had made his choice. Raito was now a lunatic. For the most part, he had to stay that way.

On the bright and blindingly optimistic side of the issue lay the fact that lunacy was Raito's free ride in life. If Raito reverted to a cultured, quiet boy, chances were, he would not be counted so innocent were he to screw up again. If, for instance, he had cleared Halle's watchful eye with civility and silence, only to nose-dive later with an accidental whisper to Ryuzaki, not only would he be counted doubly insane, but also incredibly suspicious due to his ability to fool his audience. A and W would have their respective 'A-ha!' moments and the word 'KIRA' would be plastered on his back like a neon 'kick me' sign.

He would be tried, likely found guilty, and be either incarcerated or executed on the spot.

Were Raito to screw up again in the presence of a world which knew him as an eccentric, he would be blessed with more favorable circumstances. He could place any blame on his insanity. He could legally plead insanity.

Perfect cover.

That's what it was.

Raito wasn't about to toss it aside just because Ryuzaki wanted him to.

…

By the end of Raito's appointment, he prided himself in refusing to take part in any of Halle's discussions. Soichiro showed up along with Mogi since neither of them trusted Raito's judgment anymore. His father and the NPA had lost confidence in his self control and thus insisted that he could no longer go anywhere on his own.

The only reason he'd glimpsed the heart of Tokyo that week was because Matsuda insisted on taking him on therapeutic outings to the outside world. Soichiro and his cast of cackling cohorts similarly agreed on the medicinal nature of fresh air, but never allowed him out of their sights. Purely as an experiment, Raito once feinted in the opposite direction at a traffic stop and Mogi barreled toward him with no intent of letting him escape. Though there were only a maximum of two agents accompanying him at once to avoid conspicuity, Raito calculated his chances of escape to be nearly impossible. Mogi was almost always one of the two, and he was surprisingly fast for his stocky body type.

The encroaching supervision failed to daunt Kira's cause. He and Ryuzaki had developed a mutual sign language in which Raito had only to glare at the person he wanted to kill and Ryuzaki would none too happily inform him of his victim's name. The brunette would then conjure his imagination and seal his victim's fate with a pocketed snap of the fingers.

Ryuzaki once asked him how his conscience allowed him to kill innocent people without batting an eye. Once he was alone, he simply whispered that there was life beyond death anyway, so there wasn't much for him to lose sleep over.

And then Ryuzaki said, 'That's not the point.'

Raito only smiled.

Though he enjoyed being insane and he loved convincing himself that his actions were justified, Raito couldn't squelch an annoying feeling. His craziness was great, yes, but he couldn't talk to Ryuzaki anymore. He always had to find quiet, secluded places which were becoming less and less available. He wasn't afraid of his escorts, but he found them increasingly annoying.

But Raito hadn't made the wrong decision.

That was impossible.

Raito never made bad decisions.

----

His fellow classmates whispered that he was a psycho.

One curvy matron of campus society had been on her way to confessing her undying love for the dashing schizophrenic when she was yanked from her locomotive railway by her doting girlfriends and told that the object of her adoration was a head case. Events of this likeness occurred too often for L's taste, yet left him with the satisfaction that none of Raito's potential suitors survived the gauntlet of gossip.

Granted, high school would have been worse. To-Oh's students were remarkably polite and considerate of each others' space and would accept a crazy Raito Yagami into a pressing conversation. However, rumors spread from one corner of the campus to the other and Raito Yagami, renowned athlete and celebrity of intelligence, was like a good ghost story. People only whispered about him from miles away and shrank back in respectful terror whenever he blew through the room.

In whatever environment or class he found himself in, he became the choice relic of intrigue.

L never got used to it.

He'd been quite happy being the third planet from Raito's Sun (behind killing and pride, of course). He got the benefits of occasional warmth and a stable atmosphere while 'killing' received frequent attacks by Raito's ferocity and 'pride' was mainly a ball of hot, noxious gas. Despite his previous happiness, he now found his universe quite crowded when other people began gravitating around Raito's mysterious private life. To L's delight though, he gave all of them the cold shoulder and they were forced to orbit in an isolated, lonely manner.

So there L was, sitting in Raito's psychology class, marveling at the irony of it all.

"You're not doing this to spite anyone, are you, Raito-kun?" L asked purely out of curiosity.

"No," mumbled Raito under his breath.

It was no secret to L that Raito's reasons for attending the university had changed drastically. He'd gone from promising, law-biting citizen to posing juvenile delinquent who took a bite out of the law. He dragged himself to the university each day in order to keep his father sane and bide his time. He no longer studied as much as he used to and L noticed in alarm that his grades were infinitesimally declining. A decimal grade slump was a mountain in relation to Raito's spotless track record.

On the upside, with as much supervision as he got, Raito had nothing to do but hit the books. L just had a feeling that when Raito flipped through the text, he wasn't seeing anything. His eyes were out of focus and his mind was in a likewise state of disarray. Now, L hadn't forgotten that this was _Raito Yagami_ he was talking about, but even Tokyo's rising star got tired of shining once in a while.

His brain was focused on his job.

He was a killer by profession.

Kira's heart no longer fit inside his education.

But the change was too small an issue to bother him with.

Once Raito was safely out of what L considered to be more of an auditorium than a classroom, the brunette turned to L and asked plainly, "Do you want anything?"

"World peace," replied L snidely, "with a side of cake, if you please."

"I can handle the cake," growled Raito, "it's the 'world peace' I'm working on."

"Cake then," offered the panda-eyed psychopomp.

"Cake it is," sighed the brunette.

Luckily for both of them, there were more accommodations on campus than a starchy cafeteria. The university had its own quaint café and bookstore tucked within its boundaries. Raito had adopted the strange habit lately of buying sweets for L, which, if L recalled, was an act of kindness and therefore completely outside of the brunette's nature.

Raito was getting smarter, more carefree, more devious, and above all, he was getting _nicer_.

…

No.

L was thinking too much. Far be it from Kira to buy cake for the mini-death with his own time and money. The sneaky little bastard must've been trying to bribe him into something.

L, however, accepted bribes.

Raito chose the most inconspicuous corner he could and alighted at the table there. He made a play on picking at his cake while the coon-eyed vulture inhaled it for him. Raito would turn his head away from the center of the room and bemusedly stab at the plate with his plastic fork while bits and pieces of cake would mysteriously disappear whenever the fork touched down.

L thanked him for his acting with a gratified belch.

Raito wrinkled his nose at him before drearily dragging the paper plate away.

And then it struck the mini-death as odd that Kira would drag a paper plate. By all means, he should have tossed it like a Frisbee made of gold.

L then had the shocking revelation that Kira may have been depressed.

About what?

Depression could only be brought about through his own foolish deeds, L had no doubt, but said foolish deeds had never bothered him before. So, once Raito had wandered aimlessly in the direction of a bench outside, L decided to tip him off.

"You don't seem as enthusiastic as usual, Raito-kun," he stated factually.

An annoyed sigh was his response. Raito pulled his phone out of his pocket in order to appear normal and flipped the screen up. "Ryuzaki," he grumbled as he brought the phone to his ear, "I've just been thinking more than usual."

"Oh dear," clicked L sadly, "That _is_ a tragedy."

Raito glared flatly. "I just don't have that much else to do."

"And what would Kira prefer to silence?" the mini-death inquired with arms crossed and lips pursed.

"Nothing."

"It seems I've hit the nail on the head."

"Look," Raito sighed, "I'll admit it. I… enjoy our conversations sometimes."

L was so elated, his ego nearly exploded.

The brunette continued with a reluctant sigh and a scratch at the nape of his neck. "If I'm not at the university, I'm being watched. There's absolutely no way for me to talk to you anymore. I really hadn't considered this a problem before, but…" here, he trailed off in thoughtful, resentful frustration, "but I realize that I don't have anything else to _do_ anymore. I never realized how much time in a day I spent _talking_ to you."

"And since you no longer can, you miss speaking with me on a regular basis?" L mused sagely.

"It, well… yeah. Yes. I suppose," Raito drew out.

"Flattered," announced L. To anyone unfamiliar with the mini-death's mannerisms, he could have been considered snide. However, the true explanation for L's terse answer was something entirely different. He was, quite honestly, thrilled beyond further conversation.

Luckily for L, Raito was well-versed in the mini-death's body language and rolled his golden eyes as if this reaction was the sole purpose for his avoiding the confrontation in the first place. Despite this, words continued to roll from Raito's tongue.

"I just… miss not having time to myself anymore. I hate it," the brunette continued to blaze. "I hate being monitored all the time. I want to talk to you. I want to complain to you about everything." He then slumped somewhat and pulled at the corner of one eye with the pad of his index finger in an annoyed fashion.

Dear Raito-kun exhibited none of the juvenile characteristics of a brooding, prepubescent tween.

Definitely not.

He seemed generally perplexed, vexed, and angry at himself. L had no doubt that he was reflecting on his past acts of recklessness with a woeful eye and wondering how on earth he could have allowed himself to become so narrow-minded. Now, L understood that saying so would probably make Raito furious, but he ventured a hypothesis on the young man's past behavior.

"You were quite reckless," the mini-death stated.

As expected, Raito gave him a dirty look. Unexpected, however, was the brunette's lack of vehement verbal response. Even more surprising was his agreement.

"Perhaps," Raito barked in a clipped manner, "I crossed the line."

"Indeed," concurred L sadly. "Perhaps acting like a normal human child would be to your benefit."

"Beautiful," Raito not-complimented.

"I agree," L muttered to counter Raito's enthusiasm.

The brunette glared wearily at the mini-death, amber eyes flickering side to side in a peculiarly unfocused way. "You think I should try acting normal again?" he sighed.

"Yes," replied L.

Raito rocked toward the pavement once and fell back against the bench, melting miserably into the woodwork and groaning painfully. "I want the cameras gone, Ryuzaki. I want them gone."

"Perhaps you will have them gone," nodded L. Once Raito reverted to his normal, diligent, non-crazy, pre-Kira behavior, the mini-death was certain that his supervision would diminish. It was only logical, after all.

Raito eyed L suspiciously. The mini-death blinked at him with the most transparently good-natured look he could muster. This staring contest wound down at thirty seconds before Raito's golden eyes broke away and listlessly bored their way into something else.

He caught L's drift.

"Fine," grumbled Kira, "I'll give up." He then leered distastefully from the corner of his eye and spat, "But I won't like it."

This was good enough for L. "You'll like it well enough," the mini-death remarked in optimism. "The sooner you get it over with, the sooner you can return to your life of quiet desperation."

----

Raito sat in his room, dressed in the grim countenance of a pissy college student. For once, he wasn't acting.

The brunette was miserably angry at the world for hurling circumstances at him. He hated the situation he found himself in. Before then, he hadn't counted nonexistent personal freedom as a downside. He reasoned that constant supervision would only keep him out of danger.

No.

Forget A and W. Raito was going to pull the trigger himself.

This was just a spell, he knew, and he'd wear his anger out in an hour or so, but currently Kira wanted nothing more than to go on a relaxing, therapeutic, homicidal rampage.

But he couldn't kill people, he couldn't run off anymore, and he couldn't talk to Ryuzaki. Speaking of whom, the mini-death had attached himself to the ceiling and set about glaring into the lenses of one of A and W's cameras. Raito was certain that the panda-eyed man didn't find the silence as distasteful as he did. Ryuzaki, more likely, rejoiced in the cameras' existence. He praised A and W's judgment because now, since Raito _couldn't _talk to him, he _wanted _to.

In that sense, life sucked.

What a weakling Raito was shaping up to be. His plans for lessening suspicion hadn't earned him a wink in surveillance and he was involuntarily warming up to Ryuzaki.

Seriously.

Raito had been completely unaware of it until that afternoon. Not only did he tolerate Ryuzaki's company, but he _liked _it.

_Loved it._

He, Raito Yagami, Kira and Lord of Mortality, loved Ryuzaki's company.

The mini-death's constant monologue was always interesting, but he missed talking with him. He wanted to have a two-sided conversation instead of whipping his cellular phone out on campus whenever he felt the need to spill his guts.

Ryuzaki was like a pillow to punch and sleep on, depending on Raito's mood, and, strangely, the brunette felt comfort in the fact that the mini-death would always fight back. Ryuzaki loved Raito beyond adolescent attraction, but should Raito pick a fight with him, he always found the guts to deal a deck of karma straight into the brunette's face. Also, Ryuzaki didn't sugarcoat much. If he disliked something Raito did or said, the Deck of Karma was soon at hand. When Raito was consciously being a snot, the mini-death shot him down. The only time Ryuzaki glazed his words was when Raito was in an extraordinarily bad mood.

This was the other thing Raito loved about Ryuzaki.

He knew how to drive Raito _to _the edge, but not over it. When Kira preoccupied himself with gloom and darkness, the mini-death was there to point out the silver lining on his thunderhead. This was convenient, considering Kira didn't work as well under pressure.

"Hm," hummed Ryuzaki sadly from the top of the wall, "I wonder when their batteries run out."

Raito rolled his eyes in a glum sort of way. The batteries had been changed, of course. That is, unless their size said nothing about their duration.

Much like watch batteries.

Raito sincerely doubted the ability of such low-voltage batteries to power cameras like that, but perhaps the cameras, being just as small in nature, were of a lower grade than usual. Considering their diminutive size, they were probably monochromatic and pixilated.

Plus, it didn't seem to Raito like anyone had violated his personal space since the cameras had been installed a long, _long_ time ago.

Very long.

…

Wait.

Even cameras _that_ small couldn't have survived so long without a battery change. The bugs would have been dead too.

A sudden jolt of optimism surged through Raito's gut and he sat bolt upright in his bed. Ryuzaki's coal-black eyes snapped over peculiarly. "What is the matter, Raito-kun?" he inquired.

The brunette calmly rolled toward the edge of his bed and fished around on the floor for his discarded cell phone. Once he had it between his fingers, he hefted himself back into the center of his bed and flipped it up. The happy little pixels on his screen greeted him with an enthusiastically blinding display of joy. Raito then drew the phone close to his body and pretended to punch in a number. Ryuzaki watched in amusement from the ceiling as Raito boredly shouldered the phone and twiddled his toes. After a moment of silence, he droned, "Hello? Yeah, hi. This is Raito. Can you do something for me really quick?"

Instantly, the mini-death's eyes lit up and he replied, "Gladly."

"Can you check your _webcam_ for me and see if it's still working?"

Ryuzaki lunged for the camera he'd been making faces at and seized it. Raito watched tensely as the mini-death looked it over. He couldn't see it from his vantage point, which only served to make him more anxious.

After what seemed like an hour, the mini-death backed into view with the most perplexed look on his face. Raito pleaded with his eyes.

"Well," remarked the mini-death strangely, "I don't know why I hadn't thought of it."

"Hadn't thought of what?" the brunette grouched.

"Now that I consider, though, it makes much more sense," the mini-death mused. He tilted his head at Raito and blinked with two raccoon-black eyes. "It's dead."

Raito's heart leapt into his throat and he hoped fervently that his elation was invisible. In a level voice, he addressed the phone. "Well, do you have _another_ one you could use?"

Ryuzaki went about the perimeter of the room, checking anywhere and everywhere, seeming to catch the same result. It took him a while, and for a long time, Raito had to wing his own conversation to cover the silence. "Is the lens broken? Is it unplugged? How do you know it's dead?" the brunette inquired rapid-fire, eager to learn Ryuzaki's thoughts.

"Well," the mini-death began as he searched another camera, "I'm quite attuned to circuitry. Unlike you, I can hear static when I listen for it. I hear nothing from these cameras. Also, I've tested the wiring in each one and so far, I feel no electrical current." He then perched upon the crest of Raito's office chair and chewed on one thumbnail. "Their batteries have run dry. Judging by their size, they have not been functional for a while."

Raito may have leapt for joy, but he retained his pride and Ryuzaki hadn't conducted a full sweep yet. He kept his end of the imaginary phone conversation while praising his own insight and Ryuzaki's efforts. He was brilliant. _They _were brilliant. Kira and his partner in crime were unstoppable! If Ryuzaki discovered every camera to be dead, then all he had to do was check the bugs. Raito was confident that the mini-death had memorized the positions of each device in the room. He would find them all and then Raito would be free!

Free!

"They're all dead," mused the mini-death. "Quite dead."

"Well, do you have a microphone you can use?"

"No," announced Ryuzaki, "All of the devices in your room have shut down. Though I did notice one or two outside in the hall." And with that, the mini-death drifted briefly through the wall.

When he returned, he stated, "The bugs in the hall have been removed. However, the ones installed in your room remain. None of the remaining bugs or cameras continue to function."

Raito deflated in the most relaxed sigh he had ever accomplished.

No more cameras.

No more bugs.

Big Brother was no longer watching and Raito was about to throw himself a party.

"Though I do wonder why they left the broken devices in your room," the mini-death mused from the foot of the bed.

Yes. Now there was a disconcerting thought to bring Kira plummeting back to reality. Why, indeed, had A and W left the cameras in his room? Since the ones in the hall had been removed, his nemeses must've left the cameras there on purpose. Perhaps… they expected him to find the cameras and throw a fit. Why, though? What could they gain from that?

Unless…

"Uh, do you think you could go out and buy_ another _webcam?" Raito questioned the phone.

And silently, Ryuzaki had gone.

Relentlessly, the mini-death flowed through the furniture. He oozed through Raito's desk, slithered into the closet, filtered through each fiber of Raito's folded clothing, combed the floor, scoured the bookshelf…

It took the mini-death an hour to complete and Raito had long since given up his fake conversation. He retired to a board-stiff position on his bed, impatient for Ryuzaki's verdict. The mini-death wafted noiselessly into the hall. Raito tensely abandoned his bed and went for the computer. Just in case he was still being monitored, he kept himself busy on the internet. He stuck to shopping websites where he could distractedly compare digital cameras without attracting the suspicion he got from surfing online essays and news documents.

Night fell and Raito was called down for dinner before he'd seen any sign of the mini-death. He frosted his attitude with fatigue in order to conform to his earlier medication symptoms. He stopped taking his pills, but needed to act as if he were still zombieing around in a drug-induced stupor. This was not far from the truth, as his anxiety was taking its toll on his energy, so the part was easy to act.

Raito truthfully lacked an appetite that night, so he picked at his food and scanned the floor for Ryuzaki.

A familiar voice interrupted him.

"Raito," Soichiro boomed, "You haven't eaten."

"No," the brunette admitted, "I'm not hungry."

Sachiko was strangely silent during this exchange, but Raito was no longer surprised. Since he'd acted up, she'd taken to withdrawing from conversation as often as she could. She was a whole lot quieter than she used to be, and Raito wasn't sure he liked it. He left her alone, though.

Unlike her mother, Sayu was talkative as she'd ever been.

"Raito, you need to eat something," she grouched with her lower lip pursed disapprovingly, "or you're gonna' get really pale and skinny."

"I thought you didn't want me to get _fat_," Raito goaded.

"Yeah, well being too skinny isn't good for you either, and it's just as ugly," she retorted with a bounce of her pigtails.

Raito aimed an eye at his father, who agreed with Sayu. He generally kept his glance to the floor, though, but he never once saw his vanishing mini-death. So, feeling somewhat trapped, Raito sighed, "I'm not trying to starve myself, I'm just not hungry. That's all. Besides, I had a snack earlier." The last bit was a lie, but he wanted to go back to his room.

Soichiro didn't take the bait. "Eat something, Raito. Do it for your mother."

The brunette ventured a sidelong leer at Sachiko, who, in turn, was glaring at Soichiro for bringing her into the argument. Raito pitied her anxiety. Even though his own unease was drawing the confines of his stomach to a central point, he found room for a bite or two. When Soichiro was satisfied, Raito dismissed himself from the table and headed back to his room.

"Raito," Soichiro's voice rumbled when the brunette was halfway up the stairs, "Why don't you stay downstairs with us?"

"No thanks," Raito declined cautiously, "I'm tired. I think I'm going to bed early."

"Suit yourself," muttered Soichiro in a disheartened manner.

Raito lingered there for a moment. He felt obligated to spend time with his family, but he was Ryuzaki-less. Raito was anxious. Maybe when the mini-death showed his face again, he'd feel better.

The brunette continued his eerily quiet trek up the stairs and padded over to his door. Prepared for another hour of waiting and nail-chewing, he bumped the door open.

And there was Ryuzaki.

Raito nearly tripped, fell over, and died.

As a matter of fact, he accomplished the second on his list once he closed the door behind him. Raito slumped tiredly against the doorframe as the butterflies in his gut pulled miserably on his heart. Gravity dragged him slowly to the floor and as he fell, he doe-eyed Ryuzaki into a response.

The mini-death was perched thoughtfully at Raito's footboard, gnawing on a nail and looking genuinely pleased with himself. His ringed eyes flickered and snapped over to the slipping Kira. Ryuzaki smiled. "Well, aren't you going to ask me how my search went?"

Raito huffed and puffed. Where had he been? What did he fi… wait. If he was waiting for Raito to address him formally on the matter, then…

"Ryuzaki," hissed the floored brunette, "Where the hell have you been?"

----

The question would have held more monotonous pizzazz if Raito had said 'Where the hell have you been all my life,' but L secretly knew that the brunette was incapable of that degree of inner sentimentality and that the answer to his question would have been 'at my computer,' which was just plain condescending. The answer to 'where the hell have you been' wasn't much better.

"I took the liberty of surveying your house," L announced blandly. It appeared that both he and Raito were running on fumes. They had worn their energy to the bone.

Raito's reserves of fiery wrath, however, never failed to impress.

"You searched the entire house?" he blazed.

"Yes," said L, "and the exterior of your house as well."

The brunette's infernal flame died suddenly and he was left in the ashes of a mental breakdown. Raito slid completely to the floor and sat there, head pressed back into the doorframe and feet flopping lazily to the sides. "The entire house," he sighed, "Why in hell…"

"Because I will not endanger you any further," stated L factually. "If you want to talk to me so badly, I'll be gladly to accommodate, but not until I have made absolutely sure that no one else will listen. Raito-kun's safety is my priority. Therefore, I have searched this house to the foundations. I have found nothing."

For a while, the brunette was completely silent. He gathered his wits and muttered, "Well, no wonder why you were gone so long…"

L grinned lewdly at him. "You were worried about me."

"No," grumbled Raito, pushing against the doorframe and finding his footing once again. "We've gone through this. I hate it when you leave. I don't like being alone."

"Indeed, indeed," droned L. He eyed the peculiar mortal as he stumbled tiredly back toward his bed. L watched as Raito slumped halfway onto his mattress before ungracefully hauling the rest of his body into the center of the bed. Selfish little Raito splayed his arms and legs toward every corner of the mattress and lay there on his stomach, sighing louder than a freight train.

"You really don't like it when I leave," L observed.

"You're a genius, really," the mortal remarked snidely with his face in the quilts, "I never would have guessed."

"Hm," hummed L.

"I mean," ranted Raito, "I've only thrown a fit the other _several times_ you've left me."

"Half of those were not my fault," L pointed out.

"Shut up, smartass," grumbled Kira.

The mini-death smiled and edged toward one of Raito's feet. He knew better than to fool with Raito's temper, but he also considered it to be one of the finer points in life. That in mind, he suggested quite politely, "Perhaps a nice hot shower would cheer you up."

"Not in a million years, Ryuzaki. Lay off."

"Oh, but I much prefer to lie _on_, if you don't mind," the mini-death announced wistfully as he drifted onto Raito's bed.

Raito punched him.

L felt he handled it pretty well. The pain started in dull, and then settled to something more oppressive. He rolled his abused shoulder once or twice before kneeing Raito in the side. The brunette seized up and took a sharp breath of air, but released it calmly. He eyed L up and down, sizing him up, and then determined that the two of them were equal and any further fighting on his part would be futile.

Either that or he was utterly exhausted and knew that he couldn't win.

Now, L was quite tired, but he couldn't resist the opportunity Raito's lazy fatigue gave him. In response to L's kick, the brunette had lay on his side with his back to L and his head resting on his wrists. The mini-death arranged himself in a similar manner, though he could say that he did it with considerably less grace than Raito.

The brunette lay there, still, with the exception of the occasional rise and fall of a sigh. His blankets had caught his clothes and his lower back peeked out from the folds of his shirt. L definitely would have taken the chance to molest Raito then and there, but Raito was grumpy and L was still a mass of something-more-than-arctic air.

So as enticing as it was, L left Raito's bare skin alone.

Instead, he reached out and trailed a finger around the curve of Raito's shoulder blade.

"You freak," Raito muttered irately and rolled his shoulder to escape L's touch.

L ignored him.

He traced the contours of Raito's spine to the bottom of his ribcage. The brunette grunted at him once and squirmed, but his fit ended quickly when he gave up the ghost and accepted his fate. With only the occasional flinch from Raito, L traced lazy circles into the brunette's back. As L ran his fingers along Raito's shirt, the brunette's shoulders gradually shrugged and slumped. His back rose and fell in a slow, deep, sleepy sigh.

L quite liked Raito when he wasn't tense.

They both lay there for a while and nothing was said. L fancied he could write secret code into the brunette's back and Raito would answer, but threw the notion away and settled for curly-cues and crop circles. He expected the wary mortal to remain wide-awake during such a blatant act of affection, but when he edged closer to Raito, he found the brunette's head lolled to the side and his dark eyelashes drawn over his eyes like black velvet curtains. L's first thought was that the day's events had worn Kira out. The brunette was incredibly tired, so he couldn't bring himself to stay alert.

But he was definitely awake.

The eye that L could see glimmered before revealing a ribbon of amber and white. Raito's eyebrows drew together as if he either disapproved of L's staring or disapproved of the fact that he was no longer being molested through his shirt.

L sincerely hoped for the latter.

In any case, Raito's lack of verbalization was a plus. He wasn't angry.

L flopped back down onto the mattress and continued to draw pictures in Raito's shirt, but he crept closer. His fingers wandered cautiously around the crest of Raito's waist. L watched for a sign, careful not to upset the human lying in front of him. Oddly enough, Raito did nothing. This was the encouragement L needed in order to pull Raito slowly into his chest.

Raito groaned at him, but L didn't care. The mini-death happily tugged a deadweight Raito Yagami snug against himself. L traced circles around the brunette's naval, but he didn't seem to care.

"Ryuzaki," Raito muttered tiredly.

"Hm?" L replied, feeling bubblier and sickeningly happier than he ever had.

"Why did they leave the cameras in my room?"

L set his jaw, quite disappointed. Was there something wrong with him? What was it about L that failed in creating a sufficiently romantic atmosphere?

"Well," L muttered once he forced his jaw to work, "Many of the cameras _have _been removed. I found ten cameras and two bugs. I remember considerably more, yet when I searched the house, I found no others. They have not been relocated, they have been removed."

"Hm…" sighed Raito, trying to maintain consciousness. "Wonder why they left those here…"

"Perhaps they expected you to find them," L grumbled bitterly to himself.

Why?

_Why?_

What was it? L knew for a fact that he wasn't the most attractive person in the world, as Raito made perfectly clear, but it hadn't bothered him lately. So what was it? Did he _smell _bad? Was he _awkward_? Did he just _fail_ at romanticism?

"Something's bothering you," Raito pointed out.

"Yes," grumbled L. "It would seem that I am incapable of creating any sort of romantic atmosphere. Do you agree?"

"Ryuzaki," Raito deadpanned, "You're a freak."

"Is that it?" puzzled L, "Is that my problem?"

"Maybe," shrugged Raito.

"I am a freak," L rolled the syllables curiously across his tongue, "I am a freak. _I_ ama freak…"

Raito coughed irately. "I was kidding. I was just curious. I don't want to fall asleep without fixing this problem first. I _can't_ fall asleep without fixing it. I just thought I could use your opinion."

"I see," droned L. Perhaps it wasn't _he_ who was incapable of romanticism. Raito had Kira-A.D.H.D. Assured that he wasn't the only one with problems, L supplied, "In that case, I suspect that these cameras were left here to gauge your reaction to them. Though I cannot understand why there are no cameras to record your behavior. I suppose your father could provide this information…"

"Hm," snorted Raito. "Wonder if I should yell at him."

L traced a lollypop swirl into Raito's belly button. Raito sighed at him and flexed one of his feet before falling limp once again.

"What kind of fit should I throw, do you think?" the brunette muttered as if nothing was happening.

L mused for a moment. "Rant, perhaps," he supplied. "Think about it. Consider the insecure, head-case sort of a young man you've become. How would someone in your state of drug-muddled mental instability handle this?"

"Yell," Raito brainstormed, "become reclusive and self-centered. Embarrassed, maybe?"

"Yes. Considering your magazines and e-mails to Mikami-" that whore- "you should act as if you had something to hide and your father found it. Both you and your father have established that he already knew about your e-mails, but I believe a generous dose of humiliation is in order."

"I've doled my emotions out too generously already," the brunette muttered darkly.

"Precisely," continued L. "You have already established your attitude. This is a good way to end it. You can 'discuss' the matter with Halle, have a few family meetings, boring and tedious though they may be, calm down, and you've won."

Raito smiled. "Simple and easily remembered. I like it."

"Glad I could be of assistance," beamed L.

With that, the brunette rolled out of L's grip and shoved himself out of bed. In a flash, his eyes were bright as they always were, as if he'd been awake and ready all of his life. He scrubbed his scalp with the palms of his hands and then rubbed his eyelids with the knuckles of his thumbs. He appeared to have woken up from a nightmare, bedhead and all.

He stalked noisily over to the door, jerked it open, and yelled Soichiro's name at the top of his lungs.

----

"Then I saw something shining on my bookcase."

"And then?"

"I looked."

"And?"

"It was a camera. It was a _fucking_ camera."

Raito was throwing the most fantastic fit of his life. Really, he had never felt better. There were no more cameras in his house. There were no more bugs in his house.

He was free.

Raito was ­_free_.

But he was not safe. A and W were sly, but Raito had sense enough to recognize that _something _was amiss. Since they hadn't caught him on camera, his nemeses were hoping that, in a fit of joy, Raito would parade his identity through the streets with reckless abandon, thus ruining himself. No such luck to A and W, though.

Raito would not be tricked.

He was surprised.

He was an innocently crazy teenager who had recently discovered a camera in his room. He was afraid of what was caught and possibly broadcast by this camera. He had been mistrustful of everyone ever since and his NPA surveillance had doubled in case he wanted to go crying to Mikami about his problems. He held an hour long conversation over the phone with his not-boyfriend discussing his parents' betrayal.

All in all, Raito conveyed to the world that he was angry.

Not that he was happy.

Kira would have been happy.

'No more cameras!' said Kira.

'Fucking cameras!' said Raito.

The brunette had a considerably sturdy façade to rest on.

"Oh my," whistled Halle, "You're sure they were working?"

Raito rolled his eyes theatrically. "Of course I'm sure!" he stammered, "Why the hell would anyone put dead cameras in my room?" Once he calmed down, Halle replied soothingly that everything would be fine and there must've been a reason that the cameras were there.

Raito disagreed with her. "A reason? Oh _sure_ there was a reason," the brunette muttered darkly, "He wanted to spy on me. What if there are pictures of me all over the internet now? What if he _sold_ videos of me _undressing_? Do you have ANY idea how sick that is? Do you have any idea how scared I am?"

Halle let him steam for a while and instead turned to Soichiro, who was sitting in the next chair. He appeared very calm. Raito instantly decided that, real or not, he would have a reason for his 'actions.'

"Is any of this true?" the blonde woman asked Soichiro.

"No," he denied, "I would never do such a thing to my son."

Raito sat gloomily in his spot, leering at his father. What reasons had he come up with? The brunette had a reaction to each one. If Soichiro announced that he was merely keeping an eye on him in case his schizophrenia acted up again, Raito would sulk and mutter about his family's complete lack of trust in him. If his father said that he wasn't the one who set the cameras up, Raito would rant, rave, and speculate about the culprit, express his extreme insecurity, hide from the world, and deliberately do a shoddy job on his homework.

Raito went through his list of scenarios, reciting each one as he passed it, and waited.

"Then what reason did you have for putting cameras in your son's room?" Halle quizzed.

Soichiro hesitated. He sighed and lost his impeccable posture. Running a hand through his graying hair, Soichiro turned to his son and said, "Raito…"

The brunette listened.

"…The NPA put the cameras in your room."

…_What?_

Countless though Raito's predictions were, he never expected his father to tell the truth. Raito curled his nails into the cushions, set his jaw, and his eyes drifted wider than they should have. His legs seized up and he froze in his seat.

Raito panicked.

What now?

Anything he said could be used against him. Raito knew there was recording equipment set up in the room. The brunette knew that somewhere, the footage was being reviewed with a critical eye. If Raito made one false move, he was damned.

So _this_ was A and W's plan.

Trap Kira in a corner, tell him the truth, and observe his reaction.

Okay… Raito could work with this. He relaxed and the stress in his limbs dissolved. All he had to do was act astonished. He couldn't flounder too much and he couldn't let the revelation blow over his shoulder. Raito would feel surprised and betrayed.

"What?" the brunette stammered as his eyes flickered rapidly from Halle to Soichiro. "Why would they want cameras in my room?" Raito tensed and raised his voice, "What's going on?"

Soichiro beat Halle to the punch. "Raito, please understand. You've helped us solve a few tough cases in the past, so you must know how important evidence is to us."

"Evidence of what?" Raito interrupted brashly, "And why the hell were you looking for it in my room?"

"Raito," Soichiro sighed, "Please don't be angry. I was doing my job-"

"I don't care about your job," the brunette interrupted again, rising out of his seat, taking a defensive stance, and balling his hands into fists. "I want to know what you were looking for in my room! Were you… were you suspecting me of something? Am I a suspect? Am _I_ a suspect?" Raito blazed incredulously.

"…Yes," Soichiro began slowly and sadly, "You are."

Raito dropped his shoulders first in shocked silence, then sent light tremors to his fists. He slid his eyes past Soichiro and glazed his vision over. "What…?"

Soichiro cleared his throat and began, "The NPA suspected… that you were Kira."

_...Oh, you're kidding._

Soichiro wasn't just spilling A and W's beans, he was pitching them all over the place like a flower girl with a basket full of petals.

…Well, alright. Raito thought it was a horribly bad move on A and W's part, but they must've been desperate, and Raito quite enjoyed his enemies' desperation.

"You…" he shook and whispered slowly, "You thought… Why? I mean, how could I-"

"That's what we were trying to find out," Soichiro sighed, dragging the palm of one hand down his face in fatigue. "The NPA and I knew that you were intelligent, strong of will, and straightforward, and then… your Schizophrenia hit. I protested as much as I could, but… Raito, the only way I could allow the NPA to install those cameras was to convince myself that you weren't Kira. I know you aren't Kira, Raito. I believe in you, but that person in your head scares me. I knew you weren't Kira, but I thought that, maybe… Ryuzaki…"

Neither Soichiro nor Raito chose to finish that thought, as both of them understood what was left unsaid, and Raito quite liked the dramatic silence it provided.

Raito made a show of falling awkwardly back onto the couch. There, he took a minute's worth of deep breaths and thought about what a fine predicament he found himself in. He had specifically asked not to receive Ryuzaki's input on any pressing matter because he wanted to do the figuring himself and single-handedly dig himself out of the hole he'd fallen into. Raito thought alone.

His father obviously thought that Ryuzaki was either Kira or a messenger of Kira, trying to convince Raito to do his bidding. This notion came first of all.

Second, Halle, who had been silently observing the conversation, was still looking on. Raito instantly inferred that she and his father were most definitely working together now, even if they hadn't been allied from the beginning of this fiasco. Had they not been allies, Soichiro never would have indulged that volume of classified information. He never would have explained the reason for the cameras. The NPA and its missions were now under strict confidentiality.

Interesting.

The NPA worked with Soichiro.

Soichiro had joined forces with Halle.

Halle relayed information to A and W.

Raito's own father had allied himself with the two agents his son hated most and therefore, Raito's father was Raito's enemy.

Very, very interesting.

"He… never told me to kill anyone. He never told me to do anything," Raito murmured softly, wringing his hands with eyes downcast. Raito then brought his palms up to his face, doubled over, rested his elbows on his thighs, dug the heels of his palms into his eyelids, and denied the very thing of which he tried to convince the world earlier: "I'm not crazy," Raito muttered, "I'm not crazy…"

Soichiro lost himself in silence and Halle leered on. "Your case _is _strange, Yagami-kun," she addressed the brunette formally, "You may behave irrationally sometimes, but Ryuzaki doesn't tell you to. This 'Ryuzaki' of yours is also considerably dynamic for a figment of the imagination. His moods and personality change, whereas normally he would be a static character." She mused for a moment before flipping her pen in her fingers and asking, "Is your medicine working?"

…Shit.

Just shit.

Raito sincerely hoped he was reading too deeply into Halle's schemes, but he recognized a trap set in her words. It wasn't so much a trap as a choice: Whether Raito wanted to tell the truth and leap into the unknown or to lie and risk screwing up again. If Raito told her that his pills weren't working and that he'd been pretending all this time, his suspicion would rise and God knew what A and W would have him do. If he lied and told her that his treatment worked, he risked screwing up again, which could raise his suspicion even more.

The second choice seemed the better, but if he lied, could she tell?

Could she discern through looks and tone of voice whether or not Raito was telling the truth?

Therein lay the trick.

Therein lay the bear trap Raito's foot was hovering over. Halle made a living out of interpreting behavior. The brunette prided himself with his lying skills, but he kept away from Halle's deductive reasoning. The brunette could easily lie when no questions were asked of him, but when asked to respond to a yes-no question, Raito began to doubt himself.

But Raito always kept an escape route close to his heart.

Kira always slipped straight through A and W's fingers.

The brunette kept silent. He stayed jackknifed into his knees as if contemplating his answer and its consequences. This should have been Soichiro and Halle's tip-off to worry.

"Raito," Soichiro growled with a stiff voice, urging him on.

The brunette made his decision, took a deep breath, and mumbled into his elbows.

"I h'vnm mem…" grumble, mutter, sigh.

"What was that?" Halle inquired.

Raito heaved his upper body off of his knees and fell miserably into the back of the couch. "I said I haven't been taking my pills."

----

L didn't mind letting Raito operate on his own. As a matter of fact, he enjoyed watching the way the mortal handled himself.

When he told Soichiro and Halle that he hadn't taken his pills, interrogation occurred. Halle demanded to know why Raito hadn't taken his medication. The brunette replied that it made him feel disgusting, he skipped one day and felt worlds better, and then he decided that he wouldn't take it at all. His father wondered why he hadn't heard Raito and L talking. L secretly knew that the brunette's father had seen his son's talkativeness on camera before his medication and after. Before, Raito sang like a bird. After, he said nothing. Having a good excuse for everything, Raito replied that he didn't want anyone to know because he could handle his 'disease' by himself and he hated his pills.

Then, Halle asked why he said anything.

'Did you want me to lie?' Raito spat back.

To this, Soichiro replied that he was lying anyway. Raito retorted, telling his audience that he felt guilty wasting his father's money that way. He planned on telling Halle privately in hopes of changing his prescription to a placebo, but he feared that she wouldn't accomplish his wishes and that she would tell his father anyway. He didn't want to disappoint his father any longer, but he'd been driven into a corner.

Then, he asked if there was an alternate treatment to the pills he was taking.

L suggested shock treatment, which no one heard.

But maybe Raito heard, because he'd seen _A Beautiful Mind_, read Hemmingway's biography, done some medical research, and determined shock therapy to be nothing but trouble.

That and, considering Kira's occupational hazards, he'd die of it.

Halle had announced that she needed more time to think up an alternative therapy for Raito and Soichiro had, in his blazing paternal rage, sent Raito to his room.

Raito did not complain.

He was quite happy in his camera-less sanctuary, and he made it well-known. "Two birds, one stone," the brunette remarked as he tossed his pillow up in the air and caught it.

"Mm," remarked L lazily, "poor birds."

Raito just smiled at him.

L noticed this. "You seem quite happy," he remarked. Raito caught his pillow in midair again and grinned idly in the mini-death's direction. "I _am_ happy."

L sat awhile in thought. "Yes," he conceded, "considering the activities you get so excited about, I suppose being stuck in your room with no control over the consequences of your actions is only fitting to your tastes. You have the strangest sense of security."

"I've successfully avoided another one of their traps," Raito announced flippantly. "A and W tried to fool me again."

"Quite," L droned, "I suppose you planned on foiling them by taking the third way out, driving them to insanity by providing them false evidence or none at all, forcing them to make sudden decisions concerning your suspicion, and not lead them to abandon the case _completely_, but make them desperate enough to reveal their Achilles' Heel so you can strike it down with your mighty Fingers of Justice."

"In a run-on sentence, yes."

"It was not a run-on sentence."

"It was long enough."

"You digress."

"I do."

"I see. Am I correct in assuming that you hoped to achieve all of the above?"

"Yes," Raito replied.

"And you think you accomplished all that in the span of an hour?" L deadpanned, unimpressed.

"No," Raito shrugged and tossed his pillow again, "I'm working on it. That was just one step."

"One of many in a conglomeration of evil schemes," L surmised. The way the mini-death saw things, Raito was taking credit for the various, important events of circumstance which ended well for him. Over all, he had the same plan from the beginning: make A and W mess up. L gave him credit for that, but Raito didn't need to take every step forward as a leap to the moon.

The brunette scowled at L and crowned him with a pillow. L didn't mind. Instead, he chose to discuss with Raito a matter of utmost importance.

As Raito selfishly snatched his pillow back, L quizzed, "What are you expecting, now that your enemies know you're a good liar and you haven't taken your pills?"

"They don't know I'm a good liar," Raito stated factually, "Only that I'm self-conscious and self-sufficient."

"Indeed," grumbled L. "Now tell me how you plan to deal with this."

"I plan to kill as many criminals as I did before we knew that the cameras were dead. I'll deal with my therapy as it comes. Above all, I plan to act only marginally on the eccentric side."

"Marginally?"

"As if my crazy spell was just a buildup of tension running its course."

"Hm," L thought with a thumb between his teeth, "Seems logical, but I don't think the transition should be drastic."

"It won't," Raito assured. "If Halle is a true head-shrink, she'll blame my recent attitude on the lack of communication between my father and me."

L could have made an argument on Raito's logic, but it would have been too small and detail-oriented to be of any significance. Raito's schemes were working themselves out. Even if his insane spell hadn't been the best idea, it probably cleared him of most suspicion. There were no clues to Raito's criminal activity during the more normal half of his escapade. There were no clues to Raito's criminal activity during the more eccentric half of his escapade. In all, Raito had exhibited no changes during his surveillance except his attitude. His criminal record was as white as snow.

L was quite proud of him.

And then, Raito's cell phone rang.

----

It was him.

The bastard finally called back.

Raito snaked over to the edge of the bed and fished around on the floor for his phone. He saw the caller ID. Sure enough, the caller was unidentified.

He flipped his phone up and barked a loud, "Who are you?" into the receiver.

"Won't say," the voice drawled in a digitized American accent.

Raito rolled his eyes. Yes, it was the same man who called him Kira, and he still intended to keep his identity a secret. The brunette growled, "What do you want?"

"Cigarettes," the man demanded. Then he added quickly, "And gasoline. Gas prices are hellishly high these days, and I should know."

"Really," mumbled Raito, unimpressed.

"Really," replied the voice, "Everything was cheaper in the eighties."

Raito didn't bother to ask how someone with such a young voice could know anything about the eighties.

"Why are you calling me again?" Raito sighed.

"What? You _didn't _want me to call you back after leaving you hanging?"

"Never mind," huffed Raito. Ryuzaki was giving the phone strange looks from his perch on the computer chair. The brunette ignored him. "Yesterday, you said something that confused me."

"You're Kira," stated the unknown caller.

"And you're an invisible snow demon that runs around stealing people's souls," retorted Raito in a way that anyone but a mini-death would find ridiculous.

A slow, dark, devious smile condensed in the speaker and oozed out of the phone. "Why yes," said the voice calmly, "how observant of you."

"Psycho," muttered Raito.

"Psychopomp," the voice grinned back.

And now, Raito could be _absolutely_ sure what he was talking to. No one in the human realm other than Raito knew what a psychopomp was. He sneered smugly to himself and melted back into his bed. He droned, "So. Gasoline and cigarettes, huh?"

"No. Cigarettes, Solid Snake, Wild Turkey, Gasoline, sex, and world peace. In that order."

"You're a comedian," grumbled Raito wryly.

"Sometimes," admitted the voice with an audible shrug. "Other times I prefer to be bland and boring. You caught me on a good day."

"I see," Raito muttered. He wondered whether or not he could trust this thing. He knew that, sooner or later, he would have to befriend the mysterious voice. Should he make an enemy out of it, a psychopomp could manipulate pens, paper and whatnot, eventually dropping hints to the very agency Raito wanted to dispose of.

Raito decided instantly that he didn't want to get on the other mini-death's bad side.

"So," the voice drawled lazily, "Who've you got there with you?"

He obviously meant Ryuzaki. Raito cast a quizzical eye at the mini-death. Silently, he asked Ryuzaki for permission to give his name.

"Yes," nodded Ryuzaki, and then he froze for a second in thought. After his episode ended, the mini-death gnawed on his nail and said, "Tell him… it's L. See if he recognizes it."

'L?' Raito mouthed, forming the foreign letter on his tongue. He'd have to work on his phonetics.

But why 'L?' Did mini-deaths have some sort of alphabetical code? Whatever. Raito suspected from the moment he met Ryuzaki that 'Ryuzaki' wasn't his true name.

Maybe Ryuzaki didn't have a name.

"Uh," Raito paused and returned his attention to the phone, "It's L."

"L?" mused the voice, "L… Oh. Oh my. You got stuck with _that_ old geezer? Boy, that's a _laugh_, that is."

Raito scoffed. "He is _not_ old."

"Is too. Thinks too much and doesn't know how to have fun." The voice grinned, "Am I right or am I right?"

"I suppose he can be a bit boring sometimes-" and Ryuzaki leered angrily at him from the chair- "but he isn't loud and annoying like _you_. How do you know him?"

"Ouch, by the way," remarked the lackluster voice. "I heard about him through a friend who heard about him through a friend."

"Reliable," droned Raito. "Who is this friend's friend?" Ryuzaki may have been a mite boring, but Raito secretly suspected that he wouldn't be if he didn't worry so much about Raito's well-being. Raito was thankful for his dullness.

"Don't know his name. Never met him," the voice denied.

"Right. Who's your friend, then?" Raito quizzed.

"Oh, someone special. Much like you, actually, but minus the stick up the ass."

"Funny."

"Hm. Yes, I suppose he was a lot like you. Smart, serious, Kira…"

"Wait, what?" Raito interrupted.

"Kira. He and I happened to be in California at the same time. He wanted snipers, I could shoot, and we hit it off. Well, I suppose I was better at drive-bys, but-"

"Just shut up for a second," Raito demanded. "You met Kira?"

"Yep."

"Kira."

"Yep."

Elephants solidifying out of the excitement in his chest, Raito asked, "Just out of curiosity, who was this Kira?"

"Oh, blonde, dark eyes, funny Spanish gangster accent… Loved chocolate. Nobody knew his real name, but most people called him Mello."

----

Chibi Raito: Fantastic.

Chibi Misa: Another chapter ends in a phone call. By the same person. You're losing your edge, Swirly.

Me: Wrong! Cliffhangers are my edge. Quite literally.

Chibi L: Sorry for the wait, but believe it or not, out of the two fanfics Swirl writes, she has only time for one lately. This is the one she is more inspired to write.

Me: Yeah. College is stressing me out. SATs are stressing me out. So yeah. That, and I got my first 'C' ever on a semester report card. D: I r sad.

Chibi Raito: Sympathy. Please and thank you.

Chibi Misa: Bitte und danke.

Chibi L: Molim i hvala.

Me: I love you guys. Liek, srsly. Lol. Don't be surprised if this thing gets delayed even further. I r procrastinator and I r worried about my future. So I r worried about college, then I r worried about writing. Luffs.

Chibi Raito: Deliberate grammatical errors aside, become one with our happy reviewing community.

Chibi L: Or renew your membership with another review! We love you guys in the most non-romantic way possible, and we want you to feel loved in the most non-romantic way possible.

Chibi Misa: That's what we're all about, isn't it? Non-romance?

Me: Come be a part of our distant relationship. Loves on you all.

Chibi Misa: Review, review, review!


	15. The Media Devil

DS

**DS**

**Disclaimer:** Do you even read these things anymore?

Me: This program is brought to you by…

Chibi Misa: Ryupocky! New, from the masters at RFI! For all those nights when you need to stay up and figure out who _really _murdered Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with a death note!

Chibi Raito: You will NEVER SLEEP AGAIN!

Chibi L: Warning: this product may turn you into a reclusive sociopath with a sugar fetish. RFI Inc. claims no responsibility for any raised blood-pressure, insomnia, degeneration of posture, raccoon eyes, and/or paling of the skin. Nor do we claim responsibility for your abnormally long monkey toes. Blame your parents.

Chibi Misa: Ryupocky! Before you give in to analytical frustration, give in to a box of your favorite sugary snack! Ryupocky, for the world-renowned detective you wish you were!

**D S 15**

_Raito hissed, "You knew Mello?"_

_The voice chuckled, "Very well, actually, but my time is near and alas, I have no more quarters. Perhaps we'll meet face to face sometime, but for now, ciao. Hasta la vista. All that jazz."_

"_Wait!" the brunette demanded._

_No one replied._

----

L could tell that Raito was in a deliberately foul mood. He sat there in Halle's office, looking for all the world like he wanted nothing more than a bullet to the head. L knew that none of this was true, but Raito looked the part nonetheless. He scowled viciously at both his father and Halle, or in their general direction, since they were both speaking beyond the privacy of a closed office door. L had been commissioned to eavesdrop on their conversation, and it wasn't one that the brunette was going to like.

"The side effects of his medication are naturally unfavorable. Your son's case is no more extraordinary than any other. If our therapeutic discussions make no progress and he refuses to take his medication, then the only other option I can suggest is a mental hospital," sighed Halle.

"A mental institution?" Soichiro barked incredulously. "How do you think my son, my beautiful, intelligent boy, would cope with such a… disgrace?" His arms arced furiously through the air as he stomped about the room. "He's perfectly capable of taking care of himself," Soichiro assured himself anxiously, "He can deal with this on his own if he wants to."

"He could hurt himself," insisted Halle urgently. "In my professional opinion, an individual in this stage of illness should be kept away from harm. Do you want your son to climb a tree again, Yagami-san?"

"No," Raito's father grumbled and smoothed his graying hair, "but he won't do it again. He's a reasonable boy."

"He didn't act very reasonable when he ran away those several times, did he?" Halle inquired flatly. L could tell that she was quite secure in her professional opinion. Chances were, since A and W couldn't catch him, they wanted their prime suspect confined in a controlled area. L was confident, however, that Raito's headstrong father wouldn't give him up so easily.

"What's done is done," Soichiro raved, "and I will not have my son taken away from me. Do you know how devastated he would be? You would take his family away from him. You'd steal his education, his social life, his freedom… I will not allow you to do that to my child!" The enraged Yagami punctuated his resolve with a slam of both fists on Halle's office desk.

The blonde sat passively on her rolling chair, oblivious to Soichiro's rage.

"Yagami-san, I can see no other alternative-"

"Let me talk to him," the anxious Yagami interrupted, "Maybe I can change his mind. Maybe he'll start taking his medication again…"

Halle calmly folded her hands beneath her chin and nodded. "Perhaps he will. Why don't you go talk to him?"

Quickly, L leapt off of the wall and reported his findings to Raito, who appeared less than physically mortified. His back stiffened and his jaw set, but that was the extent of his reaction. By the time Soichiro pussy-footed out the door, Raito relaxed completely.

"Raito," his father began, "Lidner-san and I have been talking."

"I heard," the mortal remarked dryly.

Soichiro ignored the snide comment and continued, "She says that unless you take your medication, she will have to send you to a mental hospital."

Raito set his jaw again and took a deep breath. "A mental hospital," he remarked after a moment of frigid silence. Soichiro nodded.

"_Damned_ if I'm going to a mental hospital," the brunette growled. "So there's… _nothing_ else? No other medications? None that won't make me feel like shit?"

"Raito," Soichiro frowned at his son's foul language.

"Dad," the brunette growled in retaliation, "I couldn't focus when I was on those pills. I couldn't read, I couldn't sleep… nothing. How am I supposed to do well in school when I'm doped up on those things?"

"I don't know, Raito. Maybe we…" he stuttered, "Maybe I should take you out of school."

"No," refused Raito.

"You don't need to attend a university. You're already intelligent enough to join the police force. It would be an easy part-time job, I could teach you everything I know…"

"No." Raito refused a second time.

L grew bored of hovering at the epicenter of Raito's drama. He located his usual spot on the ceiling and sat there, criss-cross, generally bored.

Halle emerged from her lair. She stroked a lock of hair between her thumb and index finger and observed the verbal exchange. Since she was so quiet and dignified, L knew she had something to say.

The brunette noticed her out of the corner of his eye and halted the argument with his father. He cast her a steely, accusing glare. Halle sighed. "Yagami-kun, I have a proposition for you."

"No mental institutions," Raito insisted.

"Not if you listen," Halle agreed. She took her standard place at the arm chair. "I can change your medication, but you must agree to take it."

Raito sat silently on the couch, weighing his options. Finally, his shoulders slumped and he allowed Halle to continue with her explanation. She detailed each drug's pros and cons, making a special point to uncover the potentially life-threatening side effects of each. She explained that if Raito took one drug, he couldn't do this. If Raito took another, he couldn't do that. If he took this one, he'd be nauseous for a few weeks. If she prescribed that one, he would lose most of his energy during the day. She also referred repetitively to his current medication, which, apparently, he hadn't taken enough time to get used to. According to Halle, the more violent symptoms of his medication would have subsided had he taken it regularly.

Raito's bored, hopeless sigh informed L of the tragedy of the situation. The brunette vehemently disagreed with being sent away, and yet he hated his drugs, perhaps fearing that the shinigami would use them to kill him. L sympathized and agreed. Having strong prescription medications in his house was the equivalent of sleeping in a lion's den. Then again, considering a death note, Raito could be murdered by anything. The ceiling could come crashing down on him. He could spontaneously catch fire. He could be gnawed to death by mutated sewer rats. The brunette was walking on shards of glass, and perhaps he was more ignorant of it than L had hoped.

"Continue taking the medication you've been prescribed," L advised. "You're in no less danger if it is gone. You can be killed by anything, you know."

As Soichiro engaged Halle in another loud conversation, Raito leered at L from the corner of his eye.

"I advise that you change nothing," L continued, "in the knowledge that you've already familiarized yourself with the worst your medication has to offer. Unexpected surprises await should you change your prescription."

Raito's leer simmered into a flat glare and his jaw slid horizontally in an annoyed manner. His eyes snapped back to the war zone between his father and his shrink and he barked, "Alright!" When he had the attention of both Halle and his father, he sighed, "If there's no other way, I'll keep my medication."

"You will?" Halle asked, looking genuinely surprised.

"Yeah," Raito sighed, keeping a level eye with the blonde woman. "Maybe if I take it long enough, the side effects will go away like you said."

Halle calculated his words before shifting her weight to the other hip and saying, "You're sure?"

"Yes," Raito nodded, "I'm sure." Then to his father, guiltily, "I don't want to be any more trouble. I promise I won't quit this time."

Soichiro said nothing.

----

_Horrors_, Raito's mind remarked with an airy smile.

_Horrors, horrors, horrors_.

He sat in the car, leaning on his seatbelt with Ryuzaki seated comfortably against his side. The brunette stared into the window, focusing on the glowing edge of the driver's seat as Tokyo's downtown architecture rolled steadily by.

Raito was vexed that he hadn't achieved anything in the psychiatric trauma du jour. There was nothing more he could do, really, than take his medicine in earnest, which he wholeheartedly did _not_ want to do. But a job was a job and acting acceptable was his job. If he was forced to swallow horse pills each day, then he'd do it.

Soichiro sat tensely in the driver's seat. He gripped the steering wheel rigidly between arthritic fingers and sat square to the back of the seat. Throughout the trip, he had an electrified air of expression around him, but never spoke. He swallowed his words, but wanted to spit them out.

"Raito," he broke the steady hum of the engine, "I'm very proud of you."

The brunette stared blankly into his own eyes.

"If there's… if there's something you want, I'll get it for you. Is there anything you want tonight?"

The car slowed for a stoplight and Raito peered into the tinted windows of a limousine. "I want to go to Mikami's."

His father went silent. The only sound interrupting the hum of traffic was the steady swearing of "Kirin, Krishna, and Joseph," which was moaned by an angered Ryuzaki.

Seconds later, to Raito's distasteful surprise, Soichiro asked for directions.

Directions to Mikami's.

As if he honestly expected to be led there.

Raito allowed none of his surprise to muddle his words. He simply told his father to take a left at this street, a right at the next… It occurred to him that perhaps he shouldn't have given his father the address of his forbidden love. Then again, what was Soichiro going to do about it? Teru was the person to worry about. Were he to set eyes on the raging countenance of Soichiro, he'd lapse into a babbling fit.

'_Oh my stars…'_

Raito smirked into the window.

Not long after, Raito sighted the familiar masonry of his not-boyfriend's castle.

As the car pulled toward the crowded curb, Raito cast a bland glance into Ryuzaki's equally blank eyes. The mini-death chewed bemusedly upon his thumbnail and flexed his toes.

"I'll pick you up at nine," Soichiro grumbled, leaning toward the building and glaring upward at it. "Which floor does Mikami-san live on?"

Raito replied that the matter was unimportant and he would watch for his father's car from the balcony (provided it had no intention of killing him this time).

Smartly, Soichiro noticed that Raito wouldn't stand for arguing. The brunette was truly frustrated at the world and had no intention of staying in the car were an inquisitorial argument to take place. The older Yagami consented and Raito made his way out the door.

"Call me by five," Soichiro demanded. Raito inclined his head in an affirmative and soon his father drove out of sight.

Ryuzaki slouched in his usual Malnourished Neanderthal sort of way and gnawed on his nails. As he watched the car's turn signals blink into oblivion, he remarked, "I half wanted him to refuse, but the human world never seems to turn the way I want it to."

"That makes two of us," muttered Raito as he slipped through the door.

Halfway up the stairs, he decided that calling Mikami and informing him of the imminent invasion of his property was in order. His cell phone rang unanswered for a second or two, and then a polite "Hello" curled through the speaker.

"Hey," began Raito, "I'm coming up to your apartment."

"Well," Teru beamed, "When should I expect you?"

"Right about now," said Raito.

"…Now?"

"I'm on your floor."

"Kudos for the warning," Teru not-thanked. "Excuse me as I put a few things away."

Raito could tell that Ryuzaki was two steps behind him with a witty remark. "See you in a second," the brunette hummed.

"Yes," affirmed Teru amongst busy background noises. "I'll see you then."

Teru and Raito both hung up the phone.

"To think," Ryuzaki hummed quiescently as they neared the door, "you made such a fuss about wanting to talk to me. Rubbish."

"Keep your shirt on," Raito warned with a half-backward glance.

"As you say, as you say," the mini-death pacified.

Raito knocked on the door with the subtlety of a battering ram. Teru scrambled across the carpeted floor inside and soon, the chains and bolts were rattling in his front door. The wooden thing swayed into the distance and Teru's primly preened hairdo greeted the hall. "I'm surprised," the man remarked as he searched Raito from head to foot. "No beer this time?"

"No," Raito shrugged.

"Have we moved beyond our issues?" Teru inquired.

"No," Raito shrugged again.

"Hm," Teru sighed as he leaned on his doorframe. "In any case, welcome and make yourself at home."

"Thank you," Raito bowed slightly since he was feeling odd that day. He plodded into the apartment, peeling his shoes from his feet and meandering toward the couch. As he fiddled with the buttons on the remote control, Raito mentioned, "My father's going to pick me up at nine."

"Should I be worried?" Teru asked while he took a spot on the couch.

"No," the brunette sighed. "He's not coming in."

"I see. Though I suppose we _will_ have to meet each other sometime," the dark-haired man remarked gravely. 

"Perhaps in twenty-twelve," Raito hushed in an equally cryptic tone. "Armageddon."

"Scared," mocked Teru.

During this exchange, Ryuzaki had seated himself out of the way. He lurked in the corner by the recliner, amusing himself by sticking his fingers on a light bulb within a nearby lamp. He held them there and boredly rested his chin in the palm of the other hand. "So hot," he sighed sensationally, "and yet so cold. How cruel is the world…"

Raito rolled his eyes.

"I'm hungry," complained the brunette over the babble of the television's rugby commentators. 

"Alas, I am but a law-school student," Teru's polo shirt stretched in a sigh. "I have but ramen, doughnuts, and tea."

"Ramen," said Raito.

And Teru skipped off like the good puppy he was.

Meanwhile, Raito addressed Ryuzaki. "May I ask why you're being such an emotional prick suddenly?"

"Dear," scorned Ryuzaki with his fingers still glued to the glowing light bulb, "Am I not permitted a second's philosophical refuge?"

"Not if you whine about it."

"I wasn't whining," Ryuzaki denied. "Only pondering."

"You're trying to get my attention," Raito crossed his arms and remarked dryly.

"Of course not," deadpanned the mini-death. "Any desire for attention is wasted on you when you're mooning about with tall, dark, silent mortals."

"If you want something to do, then prowl, or something," Raito groused.

"Vengeful boy," remarked Ryuzaki with a sardonic flop of the wrist.

"Seriously," Raito gritted. If the mini-death wanted to feel important, the brunette would make use of his enthusiasm. He glared at the archway dividing the living room from the rest of the world. If Ryuzaki wanted something to do, he could go spying on whatever dirty laundry may have been hiding in Teru's closet. "Tell me what's behind those walls," Raito suggested softly. "I want to know why I haven't been introduced to that side of the house yet."

Ryuzaki perked up somewhat. "Would that please you, mighty Kira?"

"Perhaps."

"Enough to appeal to my romantic side, emaciated and neglected though it may be?"

"Depends."

"In my next attempt at romance, feel free to participate."

"No."

"In that case, I suppose I'll sit here and bother you."

Raito rolled his eyes furiously. Incidentally, he _really_ wanted to see what was on that side of the house. He didn't know what had come over him, but he wished he could see the dangers lurking behind Teru's walls. Damn that Ryuzaki, using his own curiosity against him…

"Fine," he consented, "but I won't like it."

"You don't know that," the mini-death blinked his panda eyes happily and gnawed on his pinky-nail.

Raito sighed flatly. "Get to work."

----

Raito reclined elegantly on his white leather divan. He fanned himself with the feathered plumes of Pride. Power's cascading frills flowed to the floor like a waterfall of black silk. Detached from the world as a fault of his stature, Raito rested far above any groveling mortal. Life was unworthy of the dirt beneath his sparkling stilettos.

Death was _indeed _a cruel mistress.

As one of Death's vassals, L was the first to know.

Still, he was being rewarded for his efforts with a treat, a pat on the head and an overzealous 'who's a good doggie-woggie? Ryuzaki's a good doggy-woggy! Yes he is!'

Oddly enough, L couldn't bring himself to care.

Raito was agreeing, willingly or otherwise, to allow L his romantic freedom. He'd have to study up on his Karma Sutra, which was the only book L had never read. He never thought he'd have to. Until he met Raito, he felt its lessons were useless.

Oh, but what golden, glorious value its words held now!

In life, L had made it a goal of his to think only on the dark side of matters, since life was so much less disappointing that way. However, as he slunk past the forbidden doors of Mikami's mansion, he couldn't dispel the blinding light of his quixotic future.

He sincerely hoped he'd be able to move Raito beyond a yawn and a snore.

Brilliance aside, L swam across the dark, musty, carpeted floor. There was nothing extraordinary to note. The room was Mikami's bedroom, obvious by the unkempt four-poster at the middle of one wall. His wardrobe towered quietly near a full-length mirror, which had been draped in khaki pants, jeans, and formalwear. L raised an unimpressed eyebrow at the gloom. Behind the scenes, Mikami's apartment was a bit of a pigsty.

A desk sat near the window. L decided to investigate, since it seemed much more important than the messy bed or the mirror. It was a sturdy, cherry-stained thing which gave the impression of a pool table when observed in the wrong light. Its top was peculiarly lined in green fuzz. Papers lay strewn about, pens in a likewise state of disarray. A few nondescript picture frames containing images of Mikami's friends and family lay in varying states of UV-damage.

L examined the papers. He searched for alarming keywords in the text and found that most of the papers were either business-related or school-related. As he was playing with the papers, he accidentally knocked a pen to the floor. Cursing his carelessness, L peered over the edge of the desk to find that the pen had landed in the garbage can.

In the… garbage… can…

L's eyes widened and he stared in disbelief at the single most important area he'd overlooked. At least ten pencil stubs littered the wastebasket along with countless pens. Crumpled newspapers burst from the gaps in the basket's wiring.

But this was not the most shocking thing that L saw. He glared, fully shocked and mildly mortified by what the trash can held.

The garbage can was full of apples.

L's eyes roved the landscape and located a bowl of apples sitting unassumingly on the bedside table. L reveled in his discovery, and at the same time he felt profoundly disgruntled by his findings. Raito would love him for this, and he would hate him.

L surged through the window and located a dumpster in the alley outside. He flew down to it, soared through its lid, and ripped the black trash bags open one by one.

Apple cores.

Hundreds of apple cores.

"Shoulda' known," a gravelly voice sounded from above.

L withdrew immediately from the dumpster and eyed the sky. He spotted a familiar sight perched comfortably on the railing of a distant fire escape.

There Ryuk was, grinning in all his jester-like glory, looking for all the world like the brainchild of Frankenstein, and seeming completely relaxed.

"Perhaps it is _I_ who should have known," L announced flatly, stretching his spine and squaring his shoulders.

"You're not surprised?" the shinigami belched with a dull gleam of his fishy eyes.

"It would be a lie to say that I am not surprised," L remarked calmly, "but the situation is favorably ironic. How have you been?"

"Pretty good," Ryuk replied with a scratch of the head. "Nice apples around here."

"I can tell," L gestured to the dumpster. On another note, he inquired as to the state of Raito's safety. "Since I have discovered you, have you any elaborate schemes of vengeance against your enemy?"

"Not really," belched Ryuk. "I won't do anything to your precious little Kira. Too much work."

"You will not inform Mikami that he is Kira?"

"If I wanted to, I woulda' done it already. But like I said, too much work. Besides, I like watching humans figure stuff out. Especially the one with the glasses. He's a riot."

"I'm glad you're entertained," L remarked earnestly. As long as Ryuk had his fun, he could be discounted as dangerous.

"You wouldn't be interested in telling me where Mikami hides his death note, would you?" L asked politely.

"No," Ryuk refused. "I may not be on his side, but I'm not on yours, either. You want it? Go look for it."

"I see," sighed L. "Thank you for your time." Honestly, he felt quite silly for being so polite. However, he understood that goodwill was essential when meddling in the affairs of dragons. 

L scaled the wall and reentered the house through Mikami's bedroom window. He debated on whether or not to search for the mortal's death note, but prophesied the search to be tedious and useless. The mini-death had the information he needed. Mikami would not write Raito's name in his death note. He was too smitten with the brunette to do so. Even if he knew Raito was Kira, Mikami would have a rough night deciding with what to do with his name.

As he wafted back into the living room, another debate smacked into him like a brick wall.

Would he tell Raito?

The brunette would be infinitely wrathful if L came back empty-handed, and equally wrathful upon learning that he was visiting the house of an Anti-Kira. If he withheld the information, he would have to tell Raito sooner or later. Raito would discover that L had been hiding facts from him in order to accomplish his romantic wiles uninterrupted. This would not go over well. If he told Raito that he knew something, but held the information back until he got what he wanted, their outing would turn into a stalemate with Raito left in eager suspense. If he told Raito straight out, he risked losing the brunette's attention.

So many choices…

So many mistakes…

Each led to separate hells of various natures, but L liked to think of himself as a deep thinker. The last of his choices would cause him the least pain over time. Whereas telling Raito immediately was like crashing into a tree on a snowboard, withholding the information was a slowly creeping infection of gangrene. He would regret the latter more than the former. Raito would recover quickly if L announced it soon.

The mortal in question gave L a critical eye once he blew into the room. Raito was currently involved in a heated conversation with Mikami about something or another, so L waited patiently on the arm of the reclining chair.

Raito cut his conversation off and announced that he was going to the balcony for some fresh air. L flew to the sliding doors and surveyed the deck. No slippery, jagged, or conveniently combustible materials lay strewn across the balcony, and therefore, L deemed it safe for Raito's use. Once they were both outside, Raito hung his head over the railing and sighed, "So?"

"You won't like it," L warned blandly, knowing that caution was in vain.

Raito glared at him. "I don't care."

"You will," L nodded, not quite solemnly and not quite enthusiastically. He kept his voice singsong purely for the lack of dramatic effect and watched for yet another urge from Raito.

"Just tell me," Raito demanded.

So L did.

"Well," he described in a roundabout way, "I discovered that his room is terribly unkempt in nature, quite different from the neat and clean surfaces you've become accustomed to. But this is not the point."

"And what is the point?" Raito growled.

"While I was searching his desk, I stumbled upon a garbage bin full of apple cores."

It did not take the brunette's eyes long to narrow in resentment.

"Ryuk," he spat.

"No other," confirmed L. "Though he did explain to me that he had no intention of revealing your identity. If he desired, he would have done so already."

Raito eyed the blaring cars and babbling pedestrians below. "I suppose you're right. Even if Mikami learns, I'll be safe. He loves me too much."

Confident.

"I do hope you're right," shrugged L.

"Well, we've found one," Raito sighed as he heaved himself off of the railing. "And now, for the other two."

L could have been frank and hummed 'Perhaps more' in a lackadaisical sort of manner, but he deemed the remark to be counterproductive to his cause. L wanted Raito in a good mood when he ambushed him.

Just as L and Raito were about to make their way back into the building, Mikami threw open the door and hollered, "Raito! You _have_ to see this!"

----

No way.

No way, no way, no way.

If Raito thought he was shocked a minute ago, he was totally unprepared for A and W's second public service announcement. Perhaps the devious duo was behind it all, even though the man at Sakura TV's news desk was old, fat, and loud.

"Citizens of Japan," the man began with a sweep of his broom-like mustache. "I address those of you who fear Kira and those who endorse him."

Raito saw no ground to be gained since the first and most climactic of A and W's announcements had long ago been said. Were his nemeses so desperate as to tempt him with an accusation of the same kind? What were they planning to profile this time?

"Through careful examination of these brutal, unforgivable murders, the FBI-" The FBI? of course the FBI, but not if A and W were involved. The two of them had no problem putting Japan's law enforcement in jeopardy, but the average Japanese citizen wouldn't endanger the NPA. The man probably had nothing to do with America's investigative bureau anyhow. An FBI agent would never reveal his face to Kira- "has concluded one shocking thing: Kira is using innocent men and women to commit dastardly crimes!"

What?

_WHAT?_

How could-

How _could_ he?

Raito clawed secretively at the sides of his jeans. He allowed his surprise only to show insomuch that Mikami would notice. Ryuzaki observed the television with a thumb in his teeth and murmured, "What is he getting at, I wonder?"

Yes, what _was_ he getting at? Didn't A and W's hand-puppet know that detailing Kira's powers would send the community into a frenzied panic? Didn't he understand that explaining Kira's control over the future was a _horrible_ mistake? If this was A and W's doing, they were practically ditching their earlier strategy of 'he is a mortal human being' and replacing it with 'he is a god with supernatural powers!' The jump almost made Raito doubt that this was truly his nemeses' handiwork. How could the world's premier detectives, who were so reserved and quiet, publicly announce that every man and woman, regardless of spiritual good, was in danger?

Whoever this man was, he was obviously trying to shock _someone_ into giving Kira away. This hysteria would undoubtedly encourage neighbor to accuse neighbor should the _slightest _wrongdoing happen. The greater Tokyo area would dissolve into chaos, since it was widely regarded as the headquarters of the greatest God of Death in the universe.

He watched in morbid interest, however, as the unknown, balding man contorted Kira's power to his liking.

"In punishing evil, one would imagine the crime rate to fall, when in fact, it has risen!"

Risen slightly in the past two _weeks_ maybe. How the hell did he see this, anyway? Raito didn't massacre enough people for anyone to notice. However, perhaps this person or his organization had observed the spotless criminal records of his victims and assumed that something was driving them to commit crimes, despite the threat of being struck down by Kira.

Dammit!

"Innocent men and women with dreams and families have begun to destroy themselves. Kira is forcing these people to do his bidding! Friends rob friends! Neighbors attack neighbors! Families war amongst themselves! Some may see Kira as the God of Salvation, but he a Demon of Discord!"

Hm. So he wasn't mentioning Kira's control of the future, just that he could force people to 'do his bidding.' That lessened the shock value somewhat.

The man continued raving, but Raito didn't want to hear it.

Whatever organization the man belonged to, _this_ is what it was up to. Decrease Kira's following. Encourage the public to seek him out with their pitchforks and torches, but with a twist.

This man did not turn Japan on itself. He hoped to unite it against a common foe: one the citizens could blame for all of their hardships. Also, if Kira had a close group who knew him by name, this group would blaze into action and rebel against their god. It was an incredibly risky move and one Raito adamantly disapproved of, but he could not see from this organization's lofty eyes.

It was at this point in time that he deemed the announcement to be of no relation whatsoever to A and W. As Raito said before, his nemeses wouldn't take such an obvious and dangerous approach. The fact that the broadcast was not halted, however, raised Raito's suspicion that though A and W hadn't written the speech, they were not opposed to it. Perhaps the reason lay in the fact that Sakura TV was an ill-reputed gossip channel. The news would circulate, though. Maybe A and W assured themselves that the outburst would fade into the flood of ever-darkening Kira-Cult superstition.

But Raito knew that, at the very moment he was worrying, A and W were plotting. They were devouring every word so they could reinforce it and send it flying to Kira's disfavor. 

"I assume by the look on your face that you've realized what's happening," Ryuzaki hummed with that damn thumb in his mouth.

So condescending. As if _he _already knew what was going on and was lying in wait for the sparkle in Raito's eyes.

The mini-death blinked, understanding Raito's attitude, and quickly reconciled himself. "Oh no. I'm not saying that I knew. I merely wish to hear your thoughts on the matter."

Yeah?

Well when he got home, he was going to explain his thoughts on the matter. Violently.

"Quite the show," remarked Teru with his arm around Raito's shoulder.

"I can't believe you actually watch this stuff," muttered Raito, sulking.

"You don't like it?" the spectacled man asked with a rise of the eyebrows.

"I think it's crap," the brunette grumbled. "Honestly, why do they talk about this? It's only going to scare Japan out of its wits."

"Maybe you're right," Teru admitted strangely, "but I love it."

Raito blew a raspberry at him and moved on with his life. Now then, how to deal with the current situation. Ryuk he could handle, but the recent television report…

…He could handle as well.

Raito had one of two choices. Either he changed his ways and reverted to killing true criminals, which he planned on doing anyway, or he met Sakura TV's challenge with one of his own. For example, he could easily turn the news program's producer into a maniac and force him to kill all of his coworkers before proclaiming that Kira was King and those who thought otherwise could shove it.

But, then again…

Since Raito _himself_ was in a crazy mood, the NPA could observe the trends in sane people becoming lunatics, turn its eyes in his direction, say 'Oh dear God no,' and lock him up in a mental institution just to keep him away from harm.

Hmm…

And therefore, that plan was a failure.

Thus, he was left with his original strategy. He would kill just as many criminals, but they would all have committed dastardly deeds of their own volition. Raito also would make no attempt to kill people with more extensive criminal records. Doing so was an act of defense and Kira clearly didn't want A and W to perceive his security as desperation.

There.

Crisis averted.

----

Poor, poor Death.

Lying there, laboring and groaning amongst the plush pillows and fluffy quilts. Black veils streamed over the bed like mosquito nets woven from the threads of nightmares…

Frankly, watching Raito in the throes of medication side-effects at midnight brought out the poet in L.

"Why…" lamented Raito sadly as he tossed the pinwheeled blankets on his bed. "Why, why, why."

"Why, why, why," echoed L since he had nothing better to do.

"Don't… make fun of me…"

"Oh, but I will. You see, you're so easily made fun of. It brings joy to my tiny, abused heart."

"Nhhnnnnng," Raito complained.

"Mmm… music, I suppose. But I personally believe that a '_hmmmmmmmmm_' is more fitting to a young man such as yourself. Darker. More intelligent."

"Hmmmmmmm," grumbled Raito in a snobbish sort of way.

"Now you've got it," L clapped. "Keep it up."

"You're not helping…" groaned the agonized teen.

"Don't get me wrong," L defended blandly, "But if there _were_ something I could do for you, I would. However, your pain is beyond my control."

Raito whined.

"What do you expect me to do?" deadpanned L. "As far as I know, you don't have an on-off switch to your pain. On second thought, yes you do, and I've heard that it is quite effective. But physically and socially, I am quite a distance away, so there is nothing I can do."

"Seriously, Ryuzaki. That needs to stop."

"Forgive my libido," mumbled a frustrated L, "It does not know its own strength."

Raito crowned himself in the forehead with a pillow.

This alarmed L. "Physical abuse is unhealthy," he warned. "I advise against it."

Raito released the pillow on his face and it sat there, deflating sadly. L crawled across the mountains and ravines of tossed blankets to gingerly lift the pillow by its case. Raito slammed an arm across it and held it down.

"You'll get nowhere that way," L advised. Raito's hand did not budge. "I see," the mini-death remarked as he crouched and gnawed on his thumb. "Perhaps it would help if you were not so vengefully focused on your agony. Would you like me to tell you a story?"

"Yes," muttered a pillow-muffled Raito sarcastically, "Because I'm still three years old."

This sarcasm was voluntarily lost in L.

"Okay. Once, there was an angry prince named Kira."

"Jesus Christ," Raito groaned violently.

"What? You dislike my story?" the mini-death slumped in mock disappointment.

"Yes," confirmed Raito.

"I see," L gnawed sadly on his thumb. "In that case, how would it please you to pass the time?"

"Sleep…" muttered the brunette.

"I suppose I'll just sit here, then."

"That would be grand."

"Indeed it would, though I'd much rather sleep alongside a certain angry brunette…"

"Stop. Really."

"Oh? You thought I was talking about you? Oh, heavens no. You see, the man I'm thinking of was brought forth purely from my imagination. He is kind, polite, has a sense of humor, and smiles occasionally. I know no angry brunettes fitting that description."

Raito grabbed his sleeve and tugged him down.

Which, as L recalled, was in the direction of both the mattress and Raito.

Hmm.

To be exact, 'Hmm' was the very thing L was thinking as he hit the pillows and Raito's arm wrapped around his shoulders.

"Will you shut up now?" Raito growled from below his pillow. Since the fluffy piece of furniture was where it was, L had no way of determining the color of Raito's face. He assumed, however, that it was red.

Red with humiliation or red with exasperation?

Having won their little game anyhow, L simply smiled and poked fun at the angry brunette by prying his way beneath the pillow. He found Raito's face (Kira bit his sleeve), and moved on. He pulled the edge of his sleeve over one thumb and circled behind Raito's ear in the most natural way he could manage.

Raito was about as pliable as a two-by-four. His stiffness, though, wasn't that of embarrassment. The brunette was clearly annoyed and inconvenienced by his current position.

L was nearly bothered by Raito's holier-than-thou attitude, but he withstood it and reminded himself that this was Kira he was attempting to warm up to. He was about as cuddly as an iron maiden and determined to stay that way.

L grabbed a few pillows with his free hand and placed them in his general area, just in case either of them fell asleep and someone walked into the room to find Raito's arm resting on a hill of air.

To humor Raito's stiffness, he remarked, "Relax. I'm not going to break your arm off."

"I know this has happened before," the brunette muttered irately beneath his pillow, "but it's still terrifically unnatural."

"And here I was thinking you adapted well," sighed L as he peeled the pillow away from the side of Raito's face. As he did so, he mentioned offhandedly, "It would do you well to lose yourself once in a while, you know."

Raito's bored and frustrated eyes glared at him. "What do you mean?"

"Stop acting as if you've been petrified for thousands of years. You did agree, after all, not to be so rigid as payment for my escapades into Mikami's private rooms. Besides, midnight has passed. You must be exhausted."

"I am," admitted Raito with drooping eyes, "but you keep bothering me. I can't sleep."

Rude.

"Then I will lie still so you can close your eyes and sleep. I suppose that's all I can ask of you."

The brunette scowled for a second before his eyelashes drooped. Raito closed his eyes and breathed deeply, flexing his wrist around L's back. 

Minutes later, it became apparent to L that despite Raito's apparent bliss, he was not asleep. Raito's periodical twitches told that much. L knew Raito would never accept an advance of any kind. Sardonically, the mini-death puffed his cheek out and sighed, "This isn't like us, is it?"

Raito made a grunt as if to say, 'Here we go again…'

"Perhaps the reason I cannot be romantic is that I haven't a romantic bone in my body, and neither do you," mused L.

"…You wonder about this?"

"I do. Now I do, anyhow." L pointed out factually, "Me, the literally inhuman icebox who has never once experienced attraction to anything, and you, who have been desensitized to love. It's quite tragic, really."

"Maybe tragic," yawned Raito, "but not hopeless I guess. I don't feel horrible anymore, if that makes you feel any better."

This coming from Kira, who could often be equally as cold as L was? Strange.

"I suppose I've served my purpose. Shall I leave, then?" the mini-death sighed.

"No," murmured Raito with another flex of his wrist. "I just got comfortable. Stay there. You're a useful armrest."

L disregarded the haughty attitude, but was surprised nonetheless. "If you want."

Raito said nothing else and sure enough, before one-o-clock in the morning, he fell asleep.

Now, as yet another side effect of Raito's drugs, aside from the aches and pains, overwhelming lethargy tended to manifest itself. The aforementioned mortal did _not_ want to get up the next morning. His sister skipped into the room and yelled at him once, upon which the brunette tightened his hold around L's shoulders (delightfully) and refused to wake up. This was terribly inconvenient, since Raito's first class was early. Sayu returned ten minutes later with a frying pan and a ladle. "Get up, sleepyhead!" she banged the ladle against the pan.

Raito glared at her and told her to go away.

Then, she jumped on him.

L made a hasty retreat as Raito flailed and raged to get his sister off of his back. "Let me sleep!" Kira groaned. "Nope!" giggled Sayu. "You have school today!"

"So do you…" growled Kira.

"After you," Sayu grinned and stuck her tongue out.

Sayu was quite possibly the most adorable thing L had ever seen, besides Raito in one of his odd moods. She always put her hair in the cutest pigtails, which bobbed in the sweetest way whenever she walked, and she walked in a bubbly, bouncy fashion. She lit up the room and unfortunately Raito wanted nothing more than to be left in the dark.

"I'm tired," the brunette continued to complain.

"Come ooonnnnnnn… You're never this tired in the morning." Sayu bounced on the mattress and crossed her arms disapprovingly. "How late were you up last night?"

"No later than usual," grumbled the brunette.

"So… pills? Having fun with those?"

"God damn," Raito swore.

"You said a wordy dird." Sayu crooned childishly.

"Just go away. I'll be up in a minute…"

Sayu grinned with a mouthful of sparkly teeth. "Okie-dokie! But if you don't get up, I'm gonna' sic' mom on you." And then she hopped off of the bed, grabbed her kitchenware, and skipped back out the door.

"She's very cute," L remarked.

"Pedo," chanted Raito.

L rolled his eyes.

Raito stretched both arms until they bent against the headboard. Despite how tired he was, the brunette did not simply roll out of bed. Heavens, no. Kira regally flicked his hair and strode onto the floor with his head thrown back like an irritated Aphrodite. He picked his clothes from his dresser and folded them across one arm before purposefully marching out the door.

…He was going to take a shower without berating L beforehand?

Very, ­_very_ abnormal. As a matter of fact, L became confused. If the mini-death recalled correctly, Raito hadn't shoved him off last night. Usually, L was not to be set aside so lightly.

He was to be thrown.

With great force.

Which may or may not have been a strange rendering of someone else's words, someone far more famous than L, but the mini-death's confusion prevented him from discovering that fact. 

L suspected that Raito wanted something out of this. Even on a promise, Raito wouldn't have been acting the way he was. Hmm… The little bastard was bribing him. L knew it. But what for? Raito wanted him to do _something_.

Or perhaps he was simply too tired to argue.

L was very confused.

Raito emerged twenty minutes later, dressed to impress, and leered oddly at L from beyond the doorframe. The mini-death arched invisible eyebrows at him. "Something wrong?"

Raito stared strangely at him and crossed his arms across his chest. When L asked what he'd done wrong, the brunette chewed on his bottom lip and said something that would further baffle L, who was tragically unaccustomed to that sort of thing.

"Last night wasn't my night," he grumbled almost crossly. "Maybe some other time."

L chose to disguise his growing confusion beneath a veil of indifference and scorn. "Is that a promise? You seem to be breaking more and more of those lately."

Raito glared blandly. He offered no defensive excuse as to his vexed-to-vacant behavior, yet L inferred through logic that his medicine was playing pong with the chemicals in his brain. Either that, or this was a teen thing, but L knew nothing about teenagers and generally stayed as far away from them as he could.

Oddly, Raito huffed to the ceiling and muttered something along the lines of "I have to go to school," before he stomped off in no particular direction for no particular reason. L watched him as he went, noting the peculiar way in which he thundered down the stairs.

----

Once Raito's college courses were finished for the day, the Yagami boy zombied off in no direction in particular and got himself lost. He walked past one of the larger public broadcasting televisions and found its news program terribly interesting. The station was replaying Sakura TV's Kira attack. 

"-spoke with the ever-popular Sakura TV. His identity remains unknown…" The anchorwoman recited the man's claims that Kira was a murderer, not a savior. Nevertheless, she said, Japan was not to fear. The situation 'was under control' and the speaker 'was under investigation.'

Surprisingly enough, she sounded like she was on Kira's side.

The blue bar at the bottom of the screen did not read 'Kira: a murderer?' or anything of that nature. Instead, it said 'Suspicious newscast from Sakura TV.'

Hah!

The public recognized that Kira was on their side after all!

"You look awfully happy," droned Ryuzaki.

"She's on my side," Raito beamed proudly.

"She's afraid of you," corrected the mini-death. "She is an anchorwoman, and as such, she is widely recognized. Kira could easily kill her for disagreeing with him."

Raito glared. Ryuzaki was such an ignorant prick sometimes. Raito refused to hold such a pointless argument with the mini-death. If Ryuzaki wanted to disagree with him, then so be it. Raito wasn't about to be dragged down by his pessimism.

Instead, Raito decided to lecture Ryuzaki. He whirled on his heel and whipped out his cellular phone. "Ryuzaki, you've been many places and seen many things, am I correct?"

"Yes," stated the mini-death.

"Then you must be aware of what and what not to do in a romantic relationship."

"No," said Ryuzaki.

"In that case," hummed Raito, "Allow me to teach you something. When two human beings love each other very much-"

"I am not a human being."

"For the purposes of this explanation, you are."

"But I am not. Therefore, this lecture of yours is obsolete," stated the mini-death.

"Allow me to rephrase then. When a human and an _idiot_ love each other very much-"

"Raito, you could not possibly love an idiot."

"When a human and an interrupting mini-death love each other very much-"

"Ah, you mean me?"

Now he was just playing stupid.

If only to preserve his own fuse, Raito ignored him and continued, "The mini-death will do anything to make the human happy."

"So this affection is not reciprocated then?"

"Not right now, it's not," Raito warned.

"Ah, I see," muttered Ryuzaki with a thumbnail between his teeth. "Do go on, then."

"Now suppose this mini-death is you and this human is me. You want to do whatever you can to ensure that your feelings are returned. In order to accomplish this, you must agree with everything I say."

"Narcissist," hummed Ryuzaki.

"What?" sighed Raito.

"You plan to transform me into a copy of yourself. You will hear nothing but your own ideas and that satisfies you. You are a narcissist."

"Yes, Ryuzaki. If it will make you shut up and listen, I am a narcissist."

"I knew it," growled Ryuzaki.

"Furthermore," Raito interjected in a raised voice, "if you suspect that I wouldn't like to hear something, then by all means, if it won't kill me not to know, keep it to yourself."

"But your ego might kill you," Ryuzaki countered smartly. "I must keep it in check."

"Go to hell," suggested Raito.

"Only if you come with me," demanded Ryuzaki.

Raito, inferring from experience that the argument would go absolutely nowhere, focused his attention back to the television. An old man with the severest of expressions on his face was currently discussing Sakura TV's accusations.

Was he debunking them?

Raito's stamina was leaving him, and therefore he decided that he'd discover the news sometime or other from his sister or his father. He tucked his cell phone back into his pocket and meandered home.

He wondered what Sakura TV thought of all of this. Perhaps they'd hold an interesting retaliation later.

When Raito lumbered into the house, he found his mother cooking in the kitchen. She waved a hello to him with her tired, creased fingers. Out of the kindness of his heart, Raito set Ryuzaki aside for a moment to small-talk with his mom about how good dinner smelled. Sachiko was naturally flattered and the crows' feet at the corners of her eyes deepened with joy. Having done his good deed for the day, Kira slithered up to his room, slunk into bed, and sat there.

He had a habit of doing that lately.

Ryuzaki crawled about the room like a spider and Raito fiddled with the remote in order to research a new victim or two via the media. On a whim, he punched Sakura TV's channel into the remote and the screen blipped to a commercial of something akin to "Girls Gone Wild." Raito rolled his eyes. How typical.

Raito didn't particularly care for the seedy underbelly of the female scene, but Ryuzaki appeared quite taken aback by it. He crawled across the ceiling and dropped to the desk, where he smothered the television and refused to allow the smallest ray of light to bleed through. All the while he gave Raito a bored glare and repeated, "No," with the least enthusiasm he could muster.

Raito rolled his eyes and turned his attention elsewhere. Once the commercial's annoying drone changed, Ryuzaki released the television from his death-grip and left for an undistinguished corner of the room where he amused himself with the ridges in the wall. Nothing important ever showed itself, so Raito lost interest in a matter of minutes. 

Luck would have it that Soichiro had come home, Sayu was running around on the first floor, and dinner was ready all at the same time. Raito was summoned from his lair and the dopey Kira lurched down the stairs just to prove how positively annoyed he was with his medication.

Soichiro took note of his son's exaggerated movements and told him to suck it up. Raito sat at the table and despised his father quietly. The brunette was in the middle of a gulp of iced tea when Soichiro's cellular phone resounded throughout the room. Sayu, Raito, and Ryuzaki (having suddenly popped out of the ceiling) tilted their heads and cast him the queerest of looks.

Soichiro checked his caller ID, stood up, made for the hall, and answered the phone with a grave "Yes?"

He stopped in his tracks.

With the phone still to his ear, Raito's father dashed across the room, snatched up the remote on his couch, and quickly turned the television on. Sayu cooed and bounced over to the couch. Sachiko groused about Soichiro ruining dinner. Raito and Ryuzaki both leaned sideways to blink at the glowing television screen.

Soichiro had changed the channel to Sakura TV.

And Raito was very, very glad.

"…are being held hostage by Kira and under Kira's direct orders, we must show these terrifying videos…" The anchorman stated methodically, smoothing his gelled, black hair. He asked his audience to understand that these videos were not being shown exclusively in order to promote sensationalism (though Raito knew sensationalism was half the reason Sakura TV broadcast the announcement in the first place).

"Just this afternoon, a box containing four videotapes was sent to one of our directors. The instructions placed with the tapes demanded that we watch the first video ourselves…" The announcer went on to mention that the tape set a time for a recently convicted criminal's death. This tape was proven true when at said time, said criminal died of a mysterious heart attack. Another person and time were described on the tape. The second person died in much the same way. All in all, the television station was _certain _that these tapes were a personal response from Kira, attempting to debunk Sakura's earlier Kira-killer announcements.

Personally, Raito wondered how this non-Kira could respond so quickly to an announcement made only a day ago.

…wait.

The television stated briskly that the man who desecrated Kira's name earlier had died immediately after via sudden cardiac arrest.

So this X-Kira, in the interest of provoking the true Kira in the quickest way possible, forced the unknown man to make his speech before dying of a heart attack… So X-Kira made his videotape beforehand, knowing his victim's actions beforehand. Then, he sent it to Sakura TV.

Interesting theory…

"Kira also demanded that we show this tape at exactly five-fifty-eight this afternoon. The staff here at Sakura TV has not personally viewed this tape, but the instructions clearly foretell another killing."

Hm. So they hadn't viewed it yet, had they? Convenient. Whoever was in charge of keeping the tapes was going to die sooner or later. X-Kira probably had him scheduled to keep all but the first tape away from the rest of the staff before being run over by a car. Since the tapes were addressed to one of the channel's directors, this director became the most likely candidate.

A smart Anti-Kira?

Raito didn't particularly enjoy the idea.

"The time is now five-fifty eight."

Without any ado whatsoever, the screen fuzzed out to a scratchy, wobbly image of the letters K, I, R, and A written in amateur gothic font in black pen on a college-ruled piece of paper. Kira nearly lost his dinner. The tape was clearly an imitation of A and W's work, and a shoddy imitation at that! Raito was positively disgusted. Whatever respect he may have had for X-Kira's devious planning flew straight into the ocean while attached to a cinderblock.

"I am Kira," a mechanized voice scratched. "This video was aired on Sakura TV at exactly five-fifty-eight pm. I assure you that I am the one true Kira, but I understand that there are some of you who still do not have faith in my divine power."

Faith in his divine power.

How interesting…

Perhaps this X-Kira wasn't an _Anti-Kira_ after all…

Still, Raito wasn't at all proud with the way X-Kira had gone about his business. A and W in all their splendor would undoubtedly connect the timings of the old man's Kira-killer speech and the subsequent defense. They would conclude that Kira could _indeed_ control the actions of the judged. What was more, this X-Kira had his puppet broadcast Kira's deepest of powers. If he were Raito's ally, he never would have disclosed such harmful information.

Raito was unsure of what to think of his new discovery.

In any case, the voice prattled on.

"I, Kira, do exist. I am Providence itself. Those who oppose me will be crushed by the hand of justice. Behold, as I demonstrate to the infidels that the voice you hear is the voice of God. It is now five-fifty-nine. The man you are about to see has repeatedly desecrated my name. He has referred to me as 'evil,' and must therefore be punished for his heresy."

'Kira' then instructed his audience to switch their channels. "Switch it, switch it!" shrilled Sayu, balanced precariously on the couch's forward edge. Soichiro wasted no time in changing the channel. The Yagami household witnessed a talk show host laughing heartily before his visage suddenly popped and twisted in pain. A mere second later, he collapsed over the surface of his desk and the cameras began to shake as the crew rushed up to the soundstage.

Raito oozed covertly into the shadows cast behind the couch by the light of the television. Ryuzaki accompanied him, swimming across the ceiling and shooting a thoughtful glower about the room.

Soichiro changed the channel back.

"Now you have witnessed a small taste of my divine power. However, one demonstration is not enough to convince the truly skeptical. The second man, an actor who repeatedly defaces my authority with obscene jokes and gestures, will die at precisely six-o-clock and twenty four seconds."

The voice instructed his audience to switch the channel again. The television instantly winked at another scene where said actor, in the middle of an interview, doubled over and ceased to breathe.

Raito considered a moment the sheer amount of conscious _genius_ this X-Kira must have possessed. Granted, his moves were awkward with ill long-term effects, but this Kira obviously had a plan. There was a lag tacked onto television programs, live or not. This meant that Kira calculated the _exact_ delay in broadcasting to make it appear as if his victims all died directly at his command.

In order to have such readily available information about broadcasting lag, this X-Kira must've known much about the television business…

Genius.

And Raito was afraid of it.

"I have graciously provided the infidels with proof of my might. I trust that all of those watching now believe that I am who I say I am," buzzed the voice once a sweating Soichiro flipped back to Sakura TV. The old man chattered urgently into his phone while his son glared transfixed on the screen.

"Please understand that I love innocent people and regret the loss of so many innocent lives. That is why I work to free the oppressed from the claws of evil. I consider the law as my ally against darkness. I do not wish to fight the police. With the aid of many strong, kind people, my goal of peace shall be attained at last. The innocent shall live in an honorable society, free from fear. The meek shall indeed inherit the earth!"

Now Raito was baffled. He was killing Kira and empowering Kira with the same breath of air. He crippled Raito's stealth with the old man's announcement and now he was raising Kira to the status of 'God of Justice.' Why?

X-Kira was appealing to the people, not A and W. That was why.

A strange strategy.

Raito was unsure whether X-Kira was extremely smart, extremely stupid, extremely lucky, or a mixture of the three. His underlying goals contradicted themselves so drastically, Raito didn't know what to think about them anymore.

"If you good people rise with my right hand, this land of promise will be yours! Those who condemn me and refuse my light, however, shall be punished. Those of you who outwardly deny my righteousness shall be extinguished for preventing the spread of peace. If you disagree with me, you may refrain from publicizing your views and you shall be spared."

Sayu stared in awe at the glowing screen, Sachiko joining her on the couch. As Raito watched this perplexing monologue, his father suddenly appeared alongside him and pulled his son against him with his free arm in a reassuring gesture. Raito must've let more emotion seep into his eyes than was necessary…

In any case, Soichiro kept jabbering and the X-Kira continued preaching.

"Soon, the world will be inhabited by the pure of heart," assured X-Kira, "Evil will be vanquished…" yadda yadda. Raito lost his interest and instead opted to eavesdrop on his father's call. 

"Ukita?" Soichiro stammered, "He's… which channel?" He suddenly changed the channel again to a slightly better-reputed news show. The reporter ranted from across the street, pointing at a dark lump lying just outside of Sakura TV's front doors. "Someone has… someone has collapsed in front of Sakura TV!"

"Dammit!" swore Soichiro, "Kira got him! We have to do something about this… Wait! The armored van! The armored van!"

And with that, Soichiro released the pressure on his son's side and stormed out of earshot.

"Oh dear," deadpanned Ryuzaki from his vantage point on the ceiling.

Oh dear indeed.

This Anti-Kira could kill with no strings attached. Worriedly, he excused himself from the room and fled for his bed. Raito locked the door behind him and summoned Ryuzaki. The mini-death materialized near the foot of Raito's desk and alighted on his footboard.

"Ryuzaki, tell me about death notes again," demanded Raito.

"In order to kill someone with a death note," began Ryuzaki, "one must imagine the name and face of his victim before writing his name in the notebook. Details of this death must be written a short time after-"

"Wait. A name and a face, right?"

"Yes."

"Then how on earth could this Anti-Kira kill Ukita?" ranted Raito.

"Perhaps he knew Ukita?" suggested Ryuzaki weakly.

"No," muttered Raito. "Even if he did, it would have taken him a while to recognize Ukita's face from a distance. Do you think… this Anti-Kira can see peoples' names as well?"

"That is a possibility," mused Ryuzaki.

Perfect.

Just abso-fucking-lutely perfect.

Of course, the revelation held no relevance to Kira. If the shinigami didn't tip its Anti-Kira off, he couldn't possibly tell who Kira was simply by examining his name. Raito was 'Raito Yagami.' Not 'Kira.'

Raito wondered how this Anti-Kira came across the ability to see names, though. He asked Ryuzaki about it, but the mini-death was just as clueless as he was. He ventured a hypothesis about shinigami eyes, since they could see peoples' names, faces, and lifespans. The brunette filed this information in the back of his mind.

----

L and Raito were in the midst of walking back home after a short visit to Mikami's. L could only stand the stagnant atmosphere for so long and he secretly hated being anywhere in Ryuk's vicinity. The shinigami had yet to openly show himself, yet L deeply disliked occupying a space where Ryuk had been floating about mere minutes before.

Raito hadn't changed his habits, however. He insisted that anyplace was better than college, and likewise anyplace was better than home. L could do virtually nothing to stop him, so he went along for the ride.

While Mikami worked his way up Raito's khaki pants (that bastard), he made small talk about Kira's actions a few days ago. Apparently, the NPA had taken Soichiro's 'armored van' comment to heart and sent one careening through Sakura TV's glass doors to halt the progression of tapes. The riot police were called in to assist in the evacuation of the building.

Raito listened to Mikami's ramblings with more interest than he obviously felt. L was bored to tears. He was glad to be out of that stuffy apartment.

L bemusedly hung from a wire and glared straight into a red traffic light while Raito groaned over the phone to his father. Raito was late for dinner (an unforgivable offense) and now his ears were paying the price.

No sooner had Raito snapped his phone shut, cursed the world, and stepped onto the pavement than a familiar sound hummed into the atmosphere. L glared queerly down the street.

It was that Mustang again.

The hulking, candy-red apparition rocketed uphill, shooting several feet into the air and sending frenzied bystanders scurrying for the walls. It skidded back onto the pavement like a skipping stone and spun out directly over the dotted center line. Once it regained its tremendous momentum, it roared closer and L's wire began to shake.

Raito had already ducked behind a traffic light pole, but L wasn't about to assume he was safe. He slithered down the wire and alighted at Raito's side in case he had to stop the car with his _fists_.

A very Patrick Swayze thing to do.

The car swerved and lurched. It locked its front tires and its back end went skidding into the intersection.

The car stopped.

Shimmering beneath the red traffic lights, the Mustang revved its engine and spun its tires. Both L and Raito squinted tensely through the reflections in the windshield. A shadow smirked in the illumination of its cigarette.

It waved politely.

And honked.

Really, really loud.

Raito adamantly refused to bring his hands an inch in the direction of his ears. Instead, he grimaced and narrowed his eyes as the blast hit him like a brick wall.

After it had scared all civilians within a two mile radius, the car slid into a fantastic doughnut and sped off to the hellhole from whence it had come.

The invisible man.

Raito muttered something behind him. "That _has_ to be the idiot that called me. It _has _to be."

L shrugged nonchalantly. "Perhaps, but if he keeps doing stupid things like this, I assure you neither of you will meet face to face. Ever."

"Your possessiveness is annoying. Go away," suggested Raito.

"No," L refused.

Raito rolled his eyes and shook his head. L followed him home, keeping a close lookout on every darkening street. Raito was almost home free when that strange, roaring drone seeped through the darkness. L hurriedly searched the narrow street for cover, but found only streetlights and weak, wrought-iron fences.

Raito had a better sense of confidence than L. He simply steeled himself to the growing roar of the engine, turned abruptly, and waited with his fists at his sides. L slouched at his side and advised him against turning himself into an easy target. Raito raised an eyebrow in response as if L's frustration was wasted on him.

And it was.

Raito adamantly refused to budge.

The bright, bluish, halogen headlights of a speeding car swerved around the corner Raito and L had crossed a while back. The car rumbled closer and L soon raised an arm to his eyes in order to block the blinding light.

When he glanced back at Raito, the brunette was glaring about him with squinted eyes. Probably looking for unwanted stalkers.

Suddenly, the Mustang's incessant roar guttered into more of a choked purr. Its headlights dimmed and L could tell it had no intention of making a scene of itself. Quietly, politely, and smelling distinctly less of burnt rubber, the candy-shined Mustang trotted into the shadow between streetlamps and stopped.

"Odd," remarked L to his steadily glaring companion. Raito took a nonverbal approach to the situation and marched over to the muscle car with his shoulders thrown back. Puffing himself up and stiffening like a perturbed waterfowl, Raito glared into the windshield.

The glorified sound of a pop-top cracking a can open burst into the air. The driver's side door had been popped open. A silhouette ducked out from under the hood of the vehicle and jauntily strode away from the door. The cigarette it held in its hand glowed brightly and spread wisps of smoke spiraling into the lamplight.

Not waiting for the opportune moment, Raito grumbled, "You know, you could have just _floated_ through the door."

"That's old-fashioned," droned a slightly smoky voice as a pair of dark brown, suede boots waltzed into the penumbra of the streetlight. A face about the same shape as Raito's haloed by a similar fashion of airy, dust-brown hair and masked with a peculiar pair of orange-lensed sunglasses grinned lazily at both of them. "Nowadays," he drawled, spinning his cigarette in his gloved fingers, "we death gods act more like people. Stylish, don't you think?"

_Old-fashioned… shmold-fashioned_.

Anyone crazy enough to wear an ensemble like _that_ in public knew absolutely nothing about fashion. To top off the large, goggle-like glasses and black leather gloves, he wore the most fantastically horrifying red-and-black-striped, long-sleeved sweater imaginable. Over that, he wore a high-collared suede vest with white fleece lining. His generic baggy jeans were stuffed securely into his boots. Definitely overdressed for an urban area such as Tokyo. All he needed was a fur hat and he would have looked like he'd just stepped off of a jet from Russia.

A very clothing-confused Russia.

Kids these days…

"And who might you be?" L deadpanned.

The kid grinned and shifted his weight to one foot. He raised his cigarette in the air between his index and middle fingers. "Bond," he growled gruffly, "James Bond."

Raito laughed.

L seethed. "Fantastic."

"I know, right?" asked the black-and-red-striped lunatic. "And you must be L. My friend told me _so _much about you."

"Indeed," muttered L curtly. 

Raito cut in then like the businessman he fancied himself to be. With a short bow, he introduced haughtily, "Raito Yagami. Pleased to meet you."

The dusty brunette humorously considered Raito for a moment. In true disregard of tradition, he took a long drag of his cigarette and puffed a smoke circle in Raito's face. Kira waved his hand around irately and coughed.

"Matt's the name," announced the strangely dressed mini-death. "Nice to meet you too, Kira."

----

Chibi Raito: Aaaand you're done.

Me: I know, right?

Chibi Matt: -appeared, liek, two seconds ago- You need to stop procrastinating, Swirly.

Me: Yes. Though it will never happen…

Chibi L: Any bets as to whether she'll survive college?

Chibi Raito: Five hundred U.S. dollars against.

Chibi Matt: Five hundred EUROS against. 

Chibi Raito: Damn. Foiled again.

Me: Stupid American economic recessions. Makes me want to burn all of the Wal-Marts in Montana.

Chibi Misa: Muahahahaha!

Chibi Raito: You're evil, by the way.

Chibi Misa: But I'm so, like, _good_ at it!

Me: Well, you've read, now review. I myself may be a horrible reviewer, but none of you want to be like me, right?

Chibi Raito: -cough- WHORE –cough-

Chibi Misa: For cookies, for candy, and for continuation! Review, review, review!


	16. Love Stinks

DS

**DS**

**Disclaimer:** I live in Montana. I own a missile silo. Be afraid. Be very afraid…

Chibi Raito: Not like we're threatening you via the internet or anything.

Chibi Misa: Because we don't exactly know who you are.

Me: Anyhow. Welcome to another chapter of Death and His Shadow, in which our dear friend Matt makes his lovely first appearance. There's not much of DN!Matt to work from except his love of electronics, so I'm basing his personality off of one scene in the anime: His car-chase scene. Matt seems like the kind of guy who jokes around with strangers and friends alike.

Chibi Raito: We also got a review from an anonymous reviewer asking why myself and L couldn't live for thousands of years and stuff.

Me: Well, here's your answer. They can. Time runs differently in psycho-suburbia. Near and Mello made a few trips there in the past… and if I reveal any more, I'm ruining the plot. So yes. There's your answer.

Chibi Matt: Whatever.

Chibi L: Indeed. Before we bore you to death, here's your chapter. Enjoy.

Chibi Misa: Read, review, and relax!

**D S 16**

Raito Yagami awoke in the middle of the night to the pleasant sound of "DIE, DAMN YOU, DIE!!"

He tossed his blankets away, leaned his weight on one elbow, and glared down the length of his bed where, sitting on the floor, there were two mini-deaths engaged in a life-or-death game of Wii Play Tennis.

Matt hadn't taken the hint that night when Raito politely refused his demands to be shown around the house. The unpleasant mini-death eyed Raito's warning for a moment or two before deciding that it was neither shiny nor tasty enough to be of any use to him. Regardless of his voluntary insolence, Matt agreed to leave Kira and Ryuzaki alone. They were left to their own antics and Raito slept for a while.

Only to be jolted awake by this.

"Dammit, L, you gotta' swing the controller! Like this!"

"But… what about the buttons?"

"I don't give a shit about the buttons! Swing the goddamn controller!"

"But I might break something."

"Fuckin dumbass," Matt mumbled. There was a complaint from Ryuzaki thrown in amongst the terrifying sound of a psychopomp-scuffle. "Shit, bitch…" swore Matt, "There! You put the," mumble, grumble, "Thing around your hand like this. No! Fucker!" Grumble, grouse, "Thaaat's right, dumbass. Around your fuckin' wrist."

THUD!

"FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!"

A wii-mote hit the ground with a dissatisfying thump.

"YOU FUCKIN' LOST!"

Once the wii-mote made its horrifying bang against Raito's floor, footsteps could be heard a few feet downward. Raito swore eloquently before somersaulting out of bed, snatching the sickly wii-mote in one hand and switching two-player mode to the one-player screen. Matt gawped in undisguised hatred. He was about to belt out a cascade of swearwords, and he would have done it too if Soichiro hadn't knocked on the door before poking his balding head in.

"What's going on in here?" he barked.

"Couldn't sleep," Raito lied, bent over the controller and swinging his legs from the foot of his bed. Soichiro frowned at him. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Before three?" Raito guessed.

"Yes."

"I'm a big kid now, dad, I can take care of myself," Kira stated in the glow of a colorful, bouncing Mii.

Soichiro rolled his eyes and left.

This used to be an excerpt from the life of Raito Yagami until he forcibly erased it from his mind. In fact, he'd brainwashed himself so well that he didn't understand why Matt was following him down the street on his way to school the next day and complaining about how human beings didn't know how to have fun anymore. Partially because he denied knowing anything about Matt's sudden dislike of humans, Raito ignored him. Eventually, Matt clicked his tongue, blew a cloud of cancer in Kira's face, and roared off on the Red Horse of War.

"He's going to find a parking garage," muttered Ryuzaki disdainfully. "He will not leave us alone. I fear the worst."

"What a ray of sunshine you are," grumbled Raito. Of course, the angry brunette wasn't entirely opposed to Matt's presence. The mini-death was an intriguing subject, if an occasionally annoying one. Though he seemed like an attention-deprived man, Matt's constant, airy mutterings seemed more like a whimsical and deliberate attempt to get a rise out of Raito. It was an invasive personality quiz. Raito could only hope he was scoring well.

That, and Matt would stop bugging him soon.

No such luck.

Evidently, Ryuzaki's foresight was as sharp as it had ever been. Matt was casually waiting for the two of them near To-Oh's illustrious landmark sign. _His_ foresight seemed keen as well since the glowing embers of his cancer-sticks were nowhere in sight.

Matt offered Ryuzaki a politely half-lidded salute. Ryuzaki glared at him with blank, charcoal eyes. The brunette mini-death then tapped his heels together and donned an English accent. "Good day to you, old sport," he hummed to Raito.

Raito calmly swiped his cell-phone out of his pocket. "You're annoying," he whistled into the receiver.

"Is it a trend?" hummed Matt.

"Considering that both you and Ryuzaki bug the hell out of me…"

"Now you're just showing off," muttered Ryuzaki.

"Then it's a trend. And if it's a trend, then yes, I agree. I'm very trendy and I'm very annoying."

"I beg your pardon," deadpanned a slouching mini-death (though Raito secretly knew that an angry Ryuzaki begged for nothing), "but your fashion sense is worse than mine."

"No-vone's fashion sense is vorse zan jours," Matt remarked in a flowery Sven accent, "Sorry, sveetie."

"Really?" grumbled the sulking Ryuzaki.

"Oh, ja!" snorted Matt, "ze vurst I have evar seen!"

"The accents are annoying," whistled Raito.

"Exactly," hummed Matt. "I am annoying."

"And I'm stuck with you?" asked Raito.

"Not stuck. Think of it as a partnership. You know… a barnacle on a whale. That sort of thing."

"How parasitic of you."

"I suppose so."

"So. A barnacle on a whale. I _am_ stuck with you," sighed Raito.

"Technically, _I'm _stuck with _you_. Or on you, as the case may be. But you needn't worry about me, really. I'm just here for the video games."

And now, Raito raised a questioning eyebrow. "Video games?" he quizzed.

"Yeah," sighed Matt. "Electronics in general. I used to play _Pac Man_ and _Pong_, but everything now is so much cooler. Then, I could hit a pixilated circle between two lines. Now I can play _Call of Duty_ and blow holes in walls."

Raito nodded. Coupled with his delight in being annoying, Matt's love of video games explained last night's fiasco perfectly.

The fiasco which he thought he'd erased from his mind.

Dammit.

In any case, as he neared the building, Raito dismissed both Matt and Ryuzaki. The black-haired mini-death gave Raito one of his more endearing, pleading looks. Kira merely ignored him.

As Matt enthusiastically spiraled through the air and Ryuzaki followed him in a lake of slowly oozing spite, Raito wondered how he'd slip Matt past Halle. The best course of action was not to keep Matt from her, however. Even with the cell-phone trick, he was sure to screw up sooner or later. Caution never favored him at the most important of times. Therefore, Raito would simply admit that he'd found another friend who he suspected wasn't really there.

But then…

There were the drugs.

If Raito was on his drugs and his visions were multiplying, Halle would put him in a funny farm for sure. Perhaps telling her about Matt wasn't such a good idea.

Well, he could try keeping Matt a secret. If Halle somehow found out, Raito didn't know what she'd do. He didn't know what _he'd_ do. Raito didn't like not knowing what to do.

So he sat there as his fellow students filed into the classroom.

And he was very, very angry.

--

Raito had put him in a very bad situation. L could not watch after Matt and watch after Kira at once. Matt didn't seem the type to need looking-after, but something about those devilish ski-goggle-sunglasses bothered L. Something about the way Matt spoke unnerved him. If he _was_ a mini-death, why wasn't he doing his job? How could he just sit here on earth and rip through suburban Tokyo in his Mustang?

How could he love video games so much and not turn into a human?

This, L needed to know.

However, Matt spoke first. "So, how's Kira?"

L raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him. "Terrific," he replied with no enthusiasm at all.

Matt's eyes narrowed whimsically behind the glimmering shades of his sunglasses. "I take it the two of you don't get along."

"One of us tries," L muttered. "You heard him. You and I are both terribly irritating."

"He's not a people-person, is he?" asked Matt from the ceiling.

"He used to be quite sociable, actually. I think it's us he dislikes," replied L from his miserable pool on the floor.

"Ah," hummed Matt. He remained there for a while, sitting criss-cross on the ceiling and staring oddly through his glasses at L. "You like him, don't you?"

"Yes," said L.

"'Yes,'" quoted Matt, "What subtlety."

"There is no 'subtle' with Raito-kun," growled L, "He wouldn't know true affection-"

"If it fucked him in the ass," interjected Matt.

L blinked at him, quite surprised at his sudden vulgarity. Matt gazed likewise downward. "What?" he shrugged.

"Apparently there is no 'subtle' with you either," deadpanned L.

"I like being frank," remarked Matt.

Two could play at this little game, and L found Matt's games quite intriguing. "Well, Frank," he addressed the other mini-death, "that was a bit much if you ask me."

"Who's asking you?" muttered Frank, "And I'm not actually _called_ Frank, you dipshit, I was just… Oh wait. That was a joke!" Matt-called-Frank clapped his hands and whooped loudly, "You aren't boring! You really _aren't_!"

"Indeed," muttered L. "It's a shame no one _else _seems to notice."

"Hmm," mused Matt. "Maybe he's too self absorbed."

"If only you knew," muttered L. The mini-death recognized that the conversation had stalled for a moment. Before Matt could ask anything else of him, L decided to strike.

"So how is it that you can drive your car each day and fool around without getting in trouble?" he asked.

"How is it that you can hang around with Tall Dark and Apparently Selfish each day without getting in trouble?" retorted Matt.

The other mini-death had a point, but L always thought that he had only been allowed to stay simply because he could not leave. He had been assigned to take Raito's soul and he couldn't do that until the mortal was dead. So… did that mean…

"You don't have another Kira to look out for, do you?" lamented L.

Matt gave him a wry, devious grin.

And then he snorted a hilarious laugh and fell awkwardly from the ceiling. "You should have seen the look on your face!" he giggled.

L, who was too thoroughly mortified to understand the situation, rasped, "What?"

"No! There aren't any other Kiras here. Just yours." Matt then slithered across the floor and fiddled with his hair against one wall. "I have to report to The Man Upstairs at the end of each human-world day, just like you used to. I have to run around, snatching people's souls, but that doesn't mean I can't have fun while I'm at it."

L's eyebrows raised as his blood pressure took a relieving dive. "So what were you doing climbing through Raito's window last night?"

"I came in after twelve, right? It's a new day. Here I am," shrugged Matt. "Besides, our time runs different anyway."

"Hmm," L relaxed further. He oozed out of the floor and situated himself against the opposite wall. "So then, how do you manage not to turn into a human?"

Matt glared oddly at him with a tilt of the head. "You mean how do I stay like this with my video game addiction?"

"Yes," L replied.

"Simple. I like them just enough, but not too much." Then, Matt blew a puff of air at his bangs and crossed his arms. "That, and there's always something I'll like more. It's gone, though, so I don't really have to worry about it anymore. Kind of a fail-safe."

L blinked at Matt. "Something you like more?"

"Nehhh," Matt waved the idea off with a raspberry and a flick of the wrist. "Forget about it."

Matt's eyes focused on some distant, invisible horizon beyond the hall. L could clearly see that his acquaintance would speak no more on the matter. Instead, he rambled on about something similar.

"The thing is, I'm not really scared of turning into a human. I've been places and I've seen things. Nothing really gets me anymore," yawned Matt.

L's eyes narrowed. Matt had been places and seen things. He wasn't afraid to turn into a human. Of course not.

"You've been a human before, haven't you?" L accused.

Matt's goggles couldn't hide his evident surprise. "Well, I have. Yeah," he blathered, "I deal with heart attacks. That's why I'm here so often. Anyway, my first assignment was in America. I had to deal with some old guy. After that whole spiel, I noticed something in the shop he owned. It was a pawn shop and he sold a lot of portable games. Like I said before, I grew up with Pong and Pac Man. Game Boys were awesome!"

L could tell that Matt was telling the truth.

But it was a very strange truth.

First of all, psychopomps _never_ remembered their first assignments. They, along with L, had existed since the dawn of humanity. L's history had outlived his memory, and so had everyone else's. Second of all, Matt _grew up_. Psychopomps didn't grow up. They had always existed.

Matt had been alive once.

Even before his previously described escapades, he had been born a human. He had lived as a human. He did all the things humans did.

And he died as a human.

Matt _knew_ what death was like, and so he was unafraid to die.

But… how could a previously living _human being_ become a psychopomp?

Matt went on. "Anyway, I played too many video games and voila! I turned into a human. Then, I got into a car accident and died. Cool, huh?"

"And how, exactly, did you become what you are now after dying as a human?" L deadpanned.

"Well," Matt beamed proudly, "You see this trendy ensemble here?" He pulled at the hems of his striped shirt. "This is my free ride."

L failed to see how looking like Ronald McDonald would save Matt. Therefore, he stayed silent and allowed the excited mini-death to tell his story.

"Well, y'see, there's this old hag in purgatory. She's the receptionist or something," Matt added finger-quotes to 'receptionist' for good measure, "And she's got absolutely no sense of style. She was wearing white after Labor Day. I don't care if you're a Saint or a Satanist. You wear white after Labor Day and you're going to hell."

"Please, go on."

"Anyway, after I died... you know how they say you have to wait thousands of years in Limbo before they send you on?"

"Yes," replied L.

"I was there about five minutes."

L glared blankly at him. "Really."

"Yup," beamed Matt, "Remember that old hag at the reception desk?"

"Yes."

"She took one look at my shirt and said, 'Kid, you're going to hell.' So that's what I did. I went to mutherfuckin' hell."

"Sounds... harsh."

"It was. It's damn hot down there," Matt complained. He was back in his element, and L could tell. He spoke with considerable ease and each word jumped happily from his throat so it could find someone else's ear to antagonize. "Once I had my own stuffy apartment," L's acquaintance mused, "I decided that I wasn't going to let anyone else push me around. So I got out. You want to know how?"

"Yes," said L.

"The angels in heaven make a huge deal about their 'impenetrable' national security. They say they've got thousands of hundred-foot concrete fences as sheer as cliffs surrounding the borders. I decided to go out and check. You know what I saw?"

"Tell me."

"Barbed wire fences. Barbed-_fucking_-wire fences. I hopped a few and there I was! Heaven!" Matt threw his hands into the air before chuckling darkly, "And then they caught me. One of the border patrolmen recognized me and booted me back to psychopomp-land. Lucky, lucky me."

Purely to humor his strange side, L asked, "So which was better? Hell or the Suburbs?"

"Hell," Matt stated immediately. "More rock concerts and hard liquor."

--

Raito ended his school day with a forward slump and a sigh.

Matt twirled through the air in front of him, doing experimental cartwheels and flipping a vehemently protesting Ryuzaki over his shoulder. Raito refused to notice either of them. He had plenty to think about.

As he had been loafing around in his chair, Kira's mind wafted around the room, searching for something to connect with. Two of his fellow students hushed about Kira's activity in the media and how they always knew Kira existed, but they never expected to see his work enacted before their very eyes.

Raito yawned just obviously enough to catch their attention.

And then they shut up.

Raito knew he'd have to think of a plan of attack sooner or later, but given the sudden possession of his space by yet _another_ mini-death, he preferred procrastinating about it. Even if he _tried_ to conjure up a plan, Matt's incessant, inventive mind-pokes would keep his focus away.

Well, he could always try telling Matt to scram…

But Ryuzaki beat him to it.

"You have been delightful company," stated Ryuzaki with his hands in his pockets and his eyelids drawn diplomatically downward, "But the past twenty-four hours have been hectic enough. If you would come back some other time, we would be delighted to entertain you."

Matt rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I know when I'm not wanted. But just you wait. Right when you least expect it… BAM! I'll be there. You watch yourself!"

"Quite," deadpanned Ryuzaki.

"Like a spider monkey." Matt warned.

"Indeed," said Ryuzaki.

Matt pulled his glasses over his eyes and walked slowly away, only to jump mid-step and whirl back into Ryuzaki's face. "Wha-BAM!" he exclaimed with his fingers curled into claws, "Ambush! Critical hit! KO! All your base are belong to me! Just like that, bitch!"

And then, with no warning whatsoever, he vanished into thin air.

Ryuzaki blinked queerly into the shimmering air where his compatriot had been mere seconds ago. "He forgot his car," the mini-death mentioned with a sad thumb to his teeth.

Raito blew a frustrated puff of air from his lips. "Thanks," he muttered. "Much more of that, and I would've gone crazy."

"I noticed," sighed Ryuzaki, "and I agree. Though he does have quite an interesting story…"

Raito quirked an eyebrow. He'd have to ask Ryuzaki about that later…

A catchy cell-phone ring somersaulted through the air. Raito rummaged around in his pockets for his phone. "Hello?" he answered.

"Raito-kun, this is Mikami. You're out of school for the day, right?"

"Oh. Yes. What's up?"

"Actually," the voice hesitated in a strangely suave sort of way, "I was wondering if you wanted to come to my apartment for dinner tonight."

Dinner.

Raito understood that dinner was Soichiro's designated 'family time' and Raito wouldn't escape it without pulling a few teeth. Still, Ryuk could give him answers to a few questions which had been buzzing around his conscience like flies. First off, if Ryuzaki was right and Shinigami could see names as well as faces, could X-Kira see even more? Did X-Kira have any way to distinguish the true Kira from a crowd of people?

Convincing Soichiro would be difficult, but Raito supposed it wouldn't hurt to try…

"My dad might lock me up, but I'll try to come. I'll give you a call later," replied Raito.

"Alright. I'll cross my fingers," said Mikami. Raito was about to hang up when he heard, "Oh! And Raito… I love you."

Raito's insides twirled themselves into knots. He had to say something back…

_Think like a politician, Raito. Politics. Politics. Politics._

"_I love you too."_

But Raito couldn't do it. It was just too cheesy. Instead, he grinned and opted for an answer that was true to his character. For he, Raito Yagami, was not an innocent little Luke Skywalker. He was Han Solo. And he was just sexier that way.

"I know."

Mikami chuckled at him. "Somehow, that's exactly what I thought you would say."

"Hmm," purred Raito.

"See you later," Teru promised before the line went dead.

After Raito went home, he spent the remainder of the evening in quiet seclusion. He explained to Ryuzaki what he needed the mini-death to do in case Soichiro allowed him to skip dinner. Ryuzaki grumbled at him. He agreed, though, and Raito gave him a cheesy thumbs-up and an 'I knew I could count on you!'

The mini-death glared and chewed on his thumb.

Raito's thumb.

The brunette told him to stop.

And then, Soichiro came home. Raito's mission was to doe-eye his dad into letting him leave for dinner and stay after dark at a _boyfriend's house_ with no parental supervision.

Doomed to failure.

Oh well. Raito could try, and he did. Soichiro's jaw dropped earthward and his eyes bugged out of their sockets. "This is a date, isn't it?" he asked incredulously. "Yes," was Raito's answer, because with Mikami it was always a date.

Wrinkles multiplied on the poor old man's forehead. His son! His beautiful, intelligent, athletic, _masculine_ son was going on a dinner-date with an older man. Poor Soichiro.

The rest of his family had no idea as of yet. Out of shame, Soichiro kept Raito's 'secret' from Sachiko and Sayu. He'd have to make up an excuse and he was not accustomed to lying. After all, Soichiro was the chief of police.

To keep the calmly psychotic brunette happy, Soichiro grumbled and set him a curfew. He promised to pick Raito up at eight (promised, meaning Raito could _not_ object). Since his evil scheme had the desired result, Raito happily called Teru back. As he dialed the number, Ryuzaki glared apprehensively at the phone. Out of curiosity, Raito stopped dialing and sighed disdainfully. "What is it?"

"This is a date," muttered the mini-death with an abused, pink thumb in his teeth.

Raito rolled his eyes. "Yes."

"I do not feel inclined to let you date someone else," Ryuzaki remarked suddenly, as if the realization hit him that very second.

"Really?" deadpanned Raito, "Never would have expected that."

Ryuzaki slid his thumb along his teeth and perched on the corner of Raito's bed. "It bothers me. Yes, it bothers me very much." The brunette quirked an eyebrow at his mini-death compatriot. Ryuzaki was unusually thoughtful about this. Then again, it suited him, since everything about him was unusual.

"Yes, and?" Raito sneered politely.

"And I don't think I'll let you go," stated Ryuzaki, tilting his head to the left and focusing his dinner plate eyes on Raito.

"Don't think so?" the brunette played along.

"Not at all. I'm afraid I will have to keep you here."

"Unfortunate, because I think I'll go anyway."

"I am afraid not. Very sorry to inconvenience you, Raito-kun."

"It makes me sad, Ryuzaki."

"My deepest sympathies."

"I'm going to cry."

"Oh, please don't. It would break my heart."

"You break my heart."

"Oh, Raito-kun," sighed Ryuzaki sadly, "If only we could reach a compromise…"

A ha. Raito should have known. Sly little bastard, that Ryuzaki. "What sort of compromise?" hummed the tragic brunette.

"Perhaps I should let you go, but then I would feel terribly left out. If only you were to open your heart once we returned home…"

"And you're done," Raito smiled cheerfully.

Ryuzaki remained calmly on the bedpost. "Well, I've proposed my half. Set your conditions, Raito-kun."

"You get nothing," proposed Raito. "Those are my conditions."

"Oh," moped Ryuzaki. "How disheartening." Raito stood defiantly with Mikami's half-dialed number in the glowing cell-phone screen as Ryuzaki brooded on his bedpost. "In that case, I change my offer. I am a firm believer in equality, so allow me to suggest this: I only go as far as Mikami goes. Is that clear?" asked the mini-death.

"Clear as mud," replied the brunette.

"If he touches you, so do I. If he kisses you, so do I. It is quite a simple game, Raito."

Game, shmame.

Besides, Ryuzaki couldn't do any of that to him anyway.

"If he gets to first base, you get to first base." Raito rolled the idea about in his mind. Well, he and Mikami never went past the easy stuff. Fooling around. This was mostly because either Raito danced away or Ryuzaki distracted Mikami before anything could happen. Normally, the latter. Acting on this information, it would be wise to accept Ryuzaki's proposal and get it over with.

On the other hand…

What would Ryuzaki do?

Mikami sounded _pretty_ moony on the phone, and Ryuzaki knew this. So maybe the mini-death would sit back and let him have his way. However, Raito knew how much it bugged Ryuzaki to watch Mikami flirt with him.

Would Ryuzaki let his arch-rival have his way or would he come to the rescue?

Either way, Raito was intrigued.

"I accept," he declared with his free hand outstretched. Ryuzaki bit his thumb appraisingly. "You do?" he asked.

"No," replied the brunette, "I'm holding my hand out because I feel like it."

"You are certain that you will not break this promise, even though you find me terribly annoying?" Ryuzaki made a crude reference to Raito's response to one of Matt's inquiries earlier that day.

"You're _mad _about that?"

"I believe I must bring you down to earth before your ego carries you away."

"Fine," growled Raito. "I won't break my promise."

"Ah. In that case, thank you for accepting my offer. It will be upheld, yes?" quizzed the mini-death.

"Yes," confirmed Raito for the second time. Ryuzaki considered the hand with an owl-like tilt-and-blink before stretching his sleeve over his own hand and wrapping his fingers around Raito's. "A deal," he observed. "Yes," Raito replied for a third time, "Now let go."

"But I do not want to."

Raito conceded. He was perfectly capable of dialing the remainder of Teru's number with one hand. As Ryuzaki traced the contours of his palms, Raito waited through the ringing of Teru's phone.

"Hello?" came a cultured voice.

"Hey," Raito replied.

"Well, well. How're you doing in the den of lions, hm?"

"Dad said he'd let me leave. 'Till eight, anyway."

"Eight?" Teru seemed disheartened, "That's early."

"It's pretty late, considering he's letting me escape to your house in the evening with no parental supervision."

"Ah. Speaking of parental supervision, your dad isn't coming up to my apartment, is he?"

"Dunno," shrugged the brunette. "Better be prepared in case he wants to meet you."

"Right. In that case, when should I expect you?"

"Half an hour. I'm leaving right now."

"Alright then. I'll be waiting. Love you."

"I know."

Teru chuckled, "Bye."

Raito hung up and doubled his cellular phone back onto itself. Then, he took time out of his busy schedule to note that Ryuzaki hadn't let go of his hand. "You can let go now," he urged politely.

"I agree," mused the mini-death. "Whether or not I want to is another matter."

"What are you getting at?" Raito sighed, shoulders sagging.

Ryuzaki blinked curiously at him. "Is this not how mortals show affection for one another? Physical contact?"

"Holding hands is for little girls," Raito deadpanned, "not grown men."

"Oh? Then what sort of physical contact do grown men prefer, Raito-kun?" Ryuzaki nibbled on his thumb and stared intently at Raito.

"Currently, none," the brunette denied, tugging his hand free of Ryuzaki's grip.

Ryuzaki's lanky arm dangled at his side like a skinned mink. "I see," he remarked. Raito could tell that despite his rejection, Ryuzaki's bravery had not wavered. He stared intently into Raito's eyes, challengingly, as if he knew that by some tragedy of nature, his desires would be met by the end of the night.

Ryuzaki was no longer afraid of Raito's frosty attitude. Raito was beginning to doubt whether the mini-death had been intimidated by his attitude in the first place. The brunette knew, however, that when meddling with bold, wild animals, one must never express fear. Therefore, Raito straightened his collar, fixed his hair, and marched defiantly down the stairs.

--

Soichiro stayed in the car. L secretly suspected that the worried old man didn't want to believe his son was dating another man, so he strictly denied the relationship's existence by staying as far away from it as possible. Raito was relieved, Mikami was relieved, and now both of them were spooned on the couch. L was left to roam around the flat and note its peculiarity-du-jour.

Firstly, the air smelled far too good. It was an airy, tangy smell. Much like fresh-cut grass, really. The furniture in the living room was especially spotless, along with the gleaming carpet and blinding walls. In the kitchen lay a far more suspicious sight. The table was entirely too fancy, being decorated with a square of cloth which looked like the leaf-green lovechild of a doily and a Persian rug. The smell of freshly boiled pasta mingled with the lawn scent and L spied a glass jar of marinara sauce on an open shelf.

Were the lights to be dimmed and a few candles to be lit, Mikami could be justifiably sued for a despicable imitation of_ The Lady and the Tramp_.

The last thing L noticed lay quaintly out of view in the hall. Once he noticed, however, its implications could not be ignored.

The bedroom door was open.

Only slightly, but just enough to be inviting. L took an accusing peek inside to find that Mikami's room had been scoured like the rest of the house. The mirror glowed happily in the corner next to a spotless wardrobe. Mismatched clothes were nowhere to be found.

He cleaned his room.

Hoping to lure Raito into it.

Something akin to an air-raid siren blared in L's head.

And yet, he could do nothing. He _would_ do nothing. He knew what Raito expected of him and he intended to prove the haughty mortal wrong. Raito expected L to come to his rescue if Mikami even thought about getting too comfortable. He anticipated L's frequent fits of childish anger. He knew how L hated Mikami, and he planned to use that hate to his advantage.

But L would relax tonight.

He and Raito made a deal. They shook on it. A promise, once sealed in a handshake, could not be broken. If Raito did not uphold his end of the bargain, L would hold it up for him.

The two of them were playing dirty now, and Raito fancied himself the king of the sandbox. Now, L may have been a fan of nonviolence. He may have yielded his ground to Raito in the past.

But L was very, very good at games.

He ignored Raito's previous order to ask Ryuk about his eyes. That could wait. Instead, he perched on the corner of the recliner and curled his knees into his chest.

Six-o-clock, and Mikami got bold. "Hungry, Raito?" he asked with a smile.

"Starving," grinned the charming brunette.

Mikami latched onto Raito's arm and marched him into the kitchen. L followed and watched. The brunette viewed the room impassively before simultaneously pretending to be astonished and quirking a quizzical eyebrow at L. L simply shrugged at him. If L were Raito, he would be intensely annoyed with Mikami's romantic efforts. Raito glanced in an endearing and intelligent manner at his not-boyfriend, but L could tell by the twitching of his fingers that the brunette didn't quite know what to make of it all.

Regardless of his apprehension, Raito politely took his seat and partook in the competition of adoring stares Mikami started. L crawled along the ceiling and gazed at the two of them. Once Mikami was distracted enough with collecting the food he'd cooked earlier that day, Raito glared angrily at L as if he expected the mini-death to be somewhere else. L simply tilted his head and gnawed on his thumb.

"Painfully romantic dinner," L hummed. "You owe me this."

Raito scowled. _'Why aren't you doing what I asked?' _his eyes muttered.

"Perhaps later. Currently, I am keeping track of your progress. Therefore, I cannot leave, lest I miss something," replied L.

Raito glared gloomily at him before grinning at Mikami and his single bowl of spaghetti.

One large bowl of extra-long noodles.

L could honestly say at that point, he didn't really care what happened between Mikami and Raito. The romance of the moment was too much. He wasn't one to turn away, though. Instead, he simply glared blankly at the both of them as Mikami sensuously twirled spaghetti around his chopsticks and Raito lounged in his chair, reeking of tight-lipped poise and refinement. His smile was sickly sweet, cold, impassive, and acidic. His eyes shown like Juliet's 'happy' daggers.

L noticed this.

If he ever dared to take Raito out for dinner or some silly nonsense like that, he'd bring a bag of potato chips, a few cinnamon rolls, two cans of cola, and two slices of cake up to his room and call it a dinner-date. He would never force Raito to endure a candlelight dinner.

In spite of himself and the horrible time he was undoubtedly having, Raito leaned in and stared into Mikami's eyes for a longer time than was socially acceptable. Mikami, who did not seem to mind, stared back with a small, goofy smile on his face. A few mirthfully hushed words were exchanged and the next thing L knew, all three of them were back in the living room, two having expensive bowls of gelato in hand.

L secretly hated them for this.

Mikami pulled Raito into his lap and leaned on the back of the couch. Raito played along. He allowed himself to be dragged this way and that. He allowed Mikami to stroke his hair and run his fingers up and down his wrists. He tilted his head to the side and allowed Mikami's lips to explore his neck.

And then L wondered.

Raito was acting oddly. Whereas he wouldn't allow the dark-haired mortal this much contact earlier, he was now welcoming every caress with open arms. Had he forgotten his deal with L, perhaps?

In reminder, L remarked, "Necking, cuddling, and kissing. You owe me this as well."

Raito sighed at him. He leaned back, appearing to give Mikami room to work at his collarbone, when in fact he merely wished to glare defiantly at L as if to say, 'So?'

Well.

Given the circumstances, L could tolerate this behavior.

He disliked renting Raito out to anyone, but their deal kept him from intervening via some strange, unexplainable household disaster or another. Raito knew the consequences of his actions. He understood that L _would_ be repaid for this.

L gnawed on his thumbnail.

Oh dear.

Either L's imagination was on the fritz, or Raito was looking forward to upholding his end of the bargain.

Interesting.

--

Raito kept telling himself that he was in control of the situation, even though he didn't _quite_ know why he was letting this happen to him. Maybe he felt sorry for being such a brat to Ryuzaki. Maybe he actually _liked_ being taken advantage of.

Maybe Halle was right and Raito had gone absolutely apeshit.

Why was he letting Teru rub his wrists like that? Why was he letting Teru nibble on his neck like that? He asked these questions to the empty bowl of gelato on the coffee table.

The bowl gave no reply.

"Raito…" kiss, "you're beautiful." smooch, "You're perfect…"

Raito moaned in mental anguish. It used to be against his morals to use other people for his own personal gain. Currently, Raito was unsure of what he had to gain. Yet, there he was, wrapped in the arms of an unsuspecting innocent, being carefully ravished by someone he barely knew.

Raito understood that, in accepting Ryuzaki's challenge, there was no way to get revenge on him. If Raito avoided Teru like the plague, Ryuzaki won. If Teru ravished Raito, Ryuzaki won.

However, Raito had a reason to accept Ryuzaki's proposal.

There was just something Raito _loved_ in that expectant face of his. Ryuzaki's arrogance bothered him sometimes. Like he knew exactly what he was talking about _all the time_. Raito didn't want to owe anything to Ryuzaki. He didn't want to feel bound by obligation.

But when Ryuzaki was _expecting_ something to come sooner or later… When Raito could make him _wonder_…

Therein lay his revenge.

Raito's reward.

Ryuzaki had given Raito an incredible amount of power. Raito may have owed his mini-death friend a favor or two, but nowhere in the conditions of his challenge did Ryuzaki state on whose time the mini-death would be equalized with Teru. Raito could hold back if he so chose. He had a good excuse not to be intimate with Ryuzaki. A few, actually.

Firstly, Ryuzaki was not human. He was invisible and intangible. Getting in touch with him was far too complicated for Raito's liking.

Secondly, he had Matt to consider. Raito was certain that he could delay the fulfillment of his end of the bargain by hanging out with Matt all day.

And yet…

Ryuzaki was a powerful entity as well. He was unafraid of Raito's pride. He had grown accustomed to Raito's indifference. A few nights ago, he'd been so daring as to ignore Raito's horrible attitude and sleep beside him anyway.

(Or had Raito dragged him down?)

If Raito pulled his first card, Ryuzaki had a hand to counter it. If Raito shoved him away, detailing the means by which Ryuzaki could _not_ touch him, Ryuzaki could merely threaten to become human.

If Raito used Matt as a shield to hide behind, Ryuzaki would simply step around him and molest Raito anyhow. The brunette got a distinct feeling that Ryuzaki had no sense of human decency.

And still, Raito was trapped.

He owed Ryuzaki, human or inhuman, Matt or Matt-less.

Damn.

In the midst of all this thinking, Teru had stopped. "You're a little tense," he murmured in Raito's ear.

Raito _was_ a little tense. He was always a little tense. Yet, Raito did what he did best. He grinned lazily, forced himself to relax, and sighed, "Me? Tense? Well…" he turned around and casually straddled Teru's waist, "…that's because I'm bored."

Teru threw Raito onto his back and pressed his lips roughly against Raito's. Raito's lips parted and he felt the older man's wet, hot tongue caress the soft flesh of his mouth.

As far as his senses were concerned, Raito had distanced himself from Teru. His eyes snapped sharply to where Ryuzaki was perched on the corner of the recliner. Ryuzaki watched, dinner plate eyes wide and calculating, toes curled around his chair, knees bent up accordion-style and his thumb pressed to his teeth.

Observant.

Interested.

Involved.

Not jealous at all.

Sitting over there in the corner of the room, he could probably see Mikami's back hovering over Raito's chest. He could see Mikami's faceless halo of black hair.

Maybe he saw himself bent over Raito like that.

_Freak._

Maybe the reason he hadn't barged in yet was because he _knew_ Raito knew about the consequences of his actions. Ryuzaki and Raito both understood that the mini-death got as far as Teru got.

So, maybe, knowing the strange way Ryuzaki thought incredibly deeply about everything…

He thought Raito was doing this for him?

…

Fuck no.

That was… outrageous. Raito wouldn't voluntarily do something like that. Ryuzaki was… _Ryuzaki_. Raito could do better. He was so far above Ryuzaki. He _knew_ he was. Out of _all_ the people in the world, Raito would not choose Ryuzaki, who wasn't even a person by definition! He'd gone over this long ago. Ryuzaki was not physically attractive, his personality sometimes made Raito physically ill, and he was incredibly _boring_ to hang out with.

And yet Raito could not stand his absence.

Raito absolutely _hated_ it when Ryuzaki left. It wasn't any sort of emotional attachment, however. Oh no. It was a security issue.

When Ryuzaki was around, Raito felt safe.

There he went, shooting his own ego out of the sky again. Raito couldn't understand what was wrong with him. He hated contradicting himself. He was above the duality of his mind. Raito could do better.

But…

Did Ryuzaki really… _mean_ something to him? The half of Raito's brain labeled 'Kira' shouted 'BLASPHEMY!'

Even so, there were some things about Ryuzaki that Raito liked, dare he say it. Every day, it seemed, he needed to remind himself that yes, he needed Ryuzaki, and yes, he liked having Ryuzaki there.

_Loved_ it.

Was he in denial? Raito remembered more than one occasion when he'd hinted at _possibly_ getting to know a certain mini-death better. Why did he forget these occasions so often? Was he so opposed to being associated with Ryuzaki that he denied his friendship with the mini-death in his sleep?

Or maybe it was some sort of twisted child's bedtime anti-prayer?

_Dear Lord, I hate Ryuzaki. He's really annoying. Make him go away. Amen._

_PS, don't really make him go away. I can't stand it when he's gone. Amen._

Fuck.

Raito's body had been on auto-pilot for quite some time. Teru kissed and Raito kissed back. The older man's hands caressed up and down Raito's sides and Raito squirmed. But Raito's mind was coldly and dispassionately disconnected with reality.

His eyes were fixed on Ryuzaki and his gaze was becoming more livid by the second.

Raito was accustomed to high school dates who would kiss and cuddle and bribe Raito into whispering sweet, meaningless lies into their ears. He was used to catching and releasing, since there were plenty more fish in the sea and they were all practically leaping onto his pier.

But there weren't many fish like Ryuzaki.

There weren't _any_ fish like Ryuzaki.

As a matter of fact, Raito wasn't sure if Ryuzaki was a fish at all.

In every naïve relationship Raito shared, _he_ had to do all the work. He had to do the advancing, the caring, the planning, and eventually the ditching, which he became incredibly good at. With Ryuzaki, none of that was really an issue. Ryuzaki had done the advancing (a _lot_ of advancing), the caring (divine protection or otherwise), the planning (well, he hadn't lost his self control and turned into a human yet, had he?), and Raito was quite sure Ryuzaki was passionate enough not to abandon him.

Raito told Ryuzaki to get out of his hair every day. Raito tried to get rid of the mini-death on a regular basis.

But Ryuzaki would not leave. He refused. He simply sat there, watching over Raito and keeping him safe.

This satisfied Raito.

Raito told him to leave, but he didn't mean it. He told Ryuzaki that he was annoying and he hated him, but he didn't mean it. Raito had grown _so_ used to irritating people and irritating relationships that he naturally wanted to get rid of them as quickly and as often as possible.

He was used to being depended on, not having someone to depend on.

He used to hate women for being so clingy and needy, but… now he knew why they enjoyed it so much.

It was… _nice_.

Raito groaned into Teru's lips. The dark-haired man pulled breathlessly away. "What is it?" he panted.

"Fuck," huffed Raito in a winded, irritated sort of way.

Teru stared down at him, worried, as if he feared he'd done something wrong. "What's wrong?" he wheezed frantically.

"Ugh," Raito groaned and brought a hand to his face to massage his eyes. Angrily, voice full of confusion, Raito growled, "I think I'm in love."

"What?" Teru chuckle-huffed.

"Yeah," Raito moped.

And now… he was really starting to feel sorry for Teru. Poor guy. Poor, innocent, little tool…

"Fuck, Teru," Raito groaned, "I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" Teru laughed and embraced Raito in a reassuring bear-hug. "Being in love is a good thing."

_But I'm not in love with you, Teru._

"It sucks," Raito complained into Teru's collarbone. "It really, really sucks."

As Teru whispered those sweet, meaningless lies into Raito's ear, just like he used to do to sentimental women, Raito stared balefully up at Ryuzaki. The mini-death sat there as he usually did, but there was a certain gleam in his eyes. Raito could tell that Ryuzaki understood. He could tell that Ryuzaki was unspeakably happy. But still the mini-death hung back, calmly, observing, more reserved and careful than ever.

Almost like he was refraining from doing anything stupid. Like he didn't want to provoke Raito in any way.

Ryuzaki was as intelligent and insightful as he had ever been, while poor Teru Mikami remained totally and blissfully ignorant.

--

Soichiro called on time. Raito straightened his clothes on time and left the apartment on time. He and Mikami shared a few loving parting words before Raito walked mechanically down the stairs and out the door, where the car pulled up to the curb and waited.

Right on time.

Raito was functioning on a higher state of mind, evident since his thoughts floated elsewhere amongst all of the soft, invisible things in the ether. Raito marched to the car and from the car with geometric precision. One foot in front of the other, precisely angular, each stride the same distance from the last. In the time between marching, Raito sat rigidly in the car, back at a perfect right angle to his thighs, which were at likewise perfect right angles to his calves, which, in turn, were at precise right angles to his feet.

Raito's eyes were muddy and angry, lacking their usual golden clarity. His hands were fisted in his lap. His lips were clamped shut in a short, fine line.

He hardly moved. He never spoke.

L sat silently, patiently, and distantly. He dodged the occasional solar flare from Raito's boiling temper. L was very happy, but Raito was not. Therefore, L had to keep his emotions in check. Otherwise, Raito's rage would backfire and L would suffer the consequences.

He would speak if demanded to, and he would listen well.

L followed quietly as Raito marched up the stairs like a wind-up soldier. The instant he ducked into his room and closed the door, Raito lost his composure. He slowly slouched and let his arms dangle limply at his sides. The corners of his lips sank menacingly lower. His eyes smoldered miserably as he glared at L.

Annoyed, aggravated, dismal, grievous, injured, muddled.

Upset.

Raito sighed at L. L waited, trying to appear as normal as possible.

The brunette slouched there, shoulders sagging and eyes glaring, for quite a long time. The lights in his room cast a depressingly yellow hue on his skin and hooded his eyes just to the point that his golden irises gathered the light in their dish-like hollows and reflected it as if they were the eyes of a possessed cheetah. He kept silent, save for the rhythmic heave-and-sigh of unspeakable anger.

His eyes began to move. They flicked to and fro, up and down, purposefully. He sighed to himself, low and long, before abruptly giving up. He walked slowly over to L and glared into his eyes.

"Happy now?" Raito growled.

L said nothing.

"You got what you wanted. That _was_ what you wanted, wasn't it?"

L said nothing.

Raito glared at him, lips sealed in an unhappy line once more. He shook his head and hissed, "Why weren't you out looking for Ryuk like I told you to?"

L said nothing.

Raito continued shaking his head disdainfully. His eyes sparkled with angry tears, but L knew they'd soon dissolve back into the depths of Raito's eyes. Kira would not cry.

Before L knew what hit him, something _did_. Raito's fist collided with his chest at blistering speed and L went staggering backward into the bookcase. He fell into it, forcing one of the shelves out of place. Books spilled onto the floor and the bookcase quivered for a moment on its feet before crashing down.

L morphed out of the bookcase, heaving, ribs throbbing with pain.

"Raito?" came a deep voice and a matching pair of footsteps on the stair. Soichiro barged in the door to find his son sitting impassively on the side of his bed, back to the door, and his bookcase flat on the floor. "Raito, are you alright?" Soichiro demanded.

"Fine," deadpanned Raito.

"What happened to your bookcase?" Soichiro pressed.

"It fell over," said Raito.

Soichiro was silent for a moment. "Do you want to talk about this?"

"No."

Again, Yagami was silent. "Have you taken your pills yet?"

"No."

"Mm," hummed Soichiro. "Before you go to bed, Raito."

"Yeah."

Soichiro lingered in the doorframe for a while. All that time, Raito stared at L. L maintained his gaze as he prodded his sore ribs. "You're sure you're alright, son?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I expect that mess to be cleaned up tomorrow. I'll help you if you want."

"'Kay."

"Good night," sighed Soichiro.

"Night," deadpanned Raito.

Soichiro hovered before closing the door and trudging heavily down the stairs. In the silence that followed, L listened to Sachiko's worried voice and Soichiro's tired responses.

'What happened?'

'Knocked his bookcase over.'

'Why do you think-'

"Ryuzaki, don't do this," Raito mumbled suddenly from his spot on the bed.

Raito had unleashed his pent-up anger. L decided to break his silence. "Do what?" he asked simply.

"This… this stupid quiet thing. I get mad and you don't get mad. I punch you and you don't do anything. Stop acting like you're better than me."

_Oh?_

"Forgive me. I did not want to make you angry."

"Kick me," said Raito.

L blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Kick me," Raito repeated.

"Why?" L asked.

"Because I told you to. Now kick me. And don't bullshit me. Kick me like you mean it."

L sensed a trap, but he was unwilling to do much of anything about it. He didn't feel like picking a fight with Raito. "I do not wish to hurt you," stated L.

"Stop being so goddamn nice!" Raito hissed. The air flew out of L's lungs as Raito's fist connected with his gut.

L coughed a little, but he maintained his balance in order to prevent another furniture item from falling over. He held his stomach with one hand and rowed the air with the other. No sooner had he regained his ground, than another sleeve-clad fist decked him across the face. L fell back onto the floor, melting into it this time to avoid making any noise. Raito didn't even let L get up before he floored him again.

And now, L's nose hurt. For a second, he feared he'd broken something. His nose was still intact, however.

This time, Raito graciously allowed L to pick himself up off of the floor before landing another punch. L's head flew to one side, then the other. Raito hooked one side of his jaw, then the other.

Five times.

L's face felt… well, it didn't _feel_ anything. He was numb. It was a fuzzy, puffy sort of feeling. He noticed that his nose was still unbroken and it wasn't bleeding. If Raito could have given him a red mark that time at Mikami's he _should_ have been able to break his nose. As L focused on the mind-boggling physics of it all, Raito stood there, panting.

"Come on, Ryuzaki," he goaded breathlessly, "Kick me!"

"Would that make you feel any better?" L droned, feeling his face.

"Ryuzaki, you always fight back."

"Ah, but I think you do not truthfully want me to."

"Yes I do!"

"Well, I don't want to. So I will not," L refrained. He poked at the ridge of his nose, making sure it hadn't liquefied or something.

Raito stood there in a deflated fighting stance. His biceps flexed and his fists clenched, knuckles red and raw. His feet were far apart and he breathed heavily. As L carefully maintained his distance, Raito's stance began to droop. His hands dropped limply to his sides again and his shoulders sagged. That upset look burned in his eyes.

"Ryuzaki…"

L said nothing.

"Ryuzaki." Raito stumbled tiredly over.

L said nothing.

He and Raito were mere inches apart now. L kept his gaze carefully impassive, despite the massive amount of fuzzy pain that was leaking into every contour of his face. Raito studied him for a moment or two before sighing and closing his eyes. He leaned into L's shoulder and stood there, dead on his feet. He brought his arms up around L's shoulders, tiredly, and breathed a deep, resigned sigh.

"You win."

L stood still. "I win?"

"You win," sighed Raito.

"What do I win? L asked.

"You know what," Raito grumbled. "Stupid motherfucker."

"Mm," L hummed. He felt Raito's warm breath ghost through the soft hair on his neck. Cautiously, he reached an arm across the small of the brunette's back. When Raito didn't protest, L snaked the other arm around his waist and secured a comfortable hold around the other boy. "Do you still want me to kick you?" he asked.

"No," replied Raito.

"Why not?"

"Too tired…"

L smiled. "I see. In that case, go to bed. Sleep."

"I can't sleep… I won't," Raito refused. "Ryuzaki, I feel horrible."

"Hmm, Raito-kun. You are still human." L sighed.

"I don't want to be human," Raito griped, "I want to be Kira."

"Kira is human," L stated.

"I'm not supposed to feel bad. I kill people every day and I sleep like a baby at night. I'm not supposed to feel bad about using Mikami."

"But you do," remarked L. "Remember what I told you? Using people is wrong. It will hurt you more than Mikami."

Raito paused. "I've used you too, huh?"

"Maybe," L replied, "But I am willing to put it behind me. It is as I said. Karmic backlash, yes?"

"Guess so. I don't want to turn my room into a sob-fest though," Raito yawned.

"Hm. Do you feel better?" L asked, rubbing circles into Raito's sides.

"A little," Raito sighed. Then, he pulled away from L and meandered toward his closet. Along the way, he glanced up at the clock. "Only nine," Raito muttered, "God, I must be tired."

"No divine judgment for tonight?" L asked mildly.

"Mm," Raito mumbled from the closet, "Guess I'll have to stay up 'till ten. Watch the news…" He draped a pair of pajama pants across the foot of his bed and the buckle of his belt clanked as he tore it off. Raito tiredly wrenched his shirt off and threw it into the closet. L watched.

Either Raito was very tired, very relaxed, or a cocktail of both. He was _undressing_ in front of L. The mini-death had enough decency to look away.

Raito noticed this. "You don't _have_ to look away. I'm not embarrassed," he announced as he tugged at his pants (L took a peek). The mini-death retaliated with an "I was previously under the impression that it is impolite to stare, especially while one is undressing. Perhaps this is untrue?"

"Under certain conditions," admitted Raito, kicking his pants completely off (L took another peek). Raito was currently clad in nothing but a pair of loose, black boxer shorts around his thin, narrow hips. He seemed to consider the striped pair of pajama pants folded on the footboard for a second or two. Raito glanced oddly at L. Then, he thought better of himself and slid into his pajama pants.

Still a bit insecure.

L couldn't blame him, though. Raito probably felt physically ill after the day's events. If Raito wanted a security blanket, he would have his security blanket.

After Raito shut the lights off, he hit his mattress like a ton of bricks. He rolled over to snatch his remote and turned the television on. Commercials lit the room in pastel colors and broke the silence with a pleasant, muted babble.

He stayed on that side of the bed, leaving a sizeable gap between himself and the other edge of the mattress. L may have misunderstood Raito's intentions, but he risked being smacked in the face again. The mini-death hopped onto the empty side of the bed and sat there. Raito twisted around and quirked an eyebrow at him. "Friendly much?" he drawled in his usual, cocky sort of way.

"Very," replied L. "You don't mind my friendliness, do you?"

Raito blew a sophisticated raspberry at him before rolling back onto his side.

L scratched another tally into his half of the leader board. "So," he remarked, well aware of his tactlessness, "You _do_ plan on upholding your end of the bargain, do you not, Raito-kun?"

"Maybe," Raito hummed with his back to L.

"Hm," sighed L, "I expected as much."

Raito rolled onto his back and grinned smugly at L. "Maybe, when I feel like it, I'll think about it."

L identified this ambiguity as a definite 'YES.'

"I see. When do you expect you'll 'feel like it?'" L cocked his head and gnawed on his thumb.

"Never," Raito hummed pleasantly. "Never ever."

"Yes…" L brooded. He eyed Raito queerly and twiddled his toes. "You leave me no choice. I must now appear as irresistible as I possibly can. Tell me, Raito-kun, what do you find irresistible?"

"Peace, quiet, serenity. Sleep. Being left alone. All that."

"Ha. But I will not fall for your traps, you see. I will not be quiet, and neither will I pretend not to be here. I most certainly will not leave, since you have the nasty habit of worrying while I'm gone."

"Dammit," Raito not-swore.

"Now tell me, Raito-kun. Do you like cute things?" L asked.

"No," denied Raito, "I kick puppies."

"Do you?"

"Yes. Often."

"Oh dear. That won't do," L worried with a lonely sigh. "Do you like pretty things?"

"No," Raito denied a second time, "they're either dumb as rocks or they make me sneeze."

"Hm," sighed L. "What to do, what to do. You like smart things, then?"

"Sure, why not," relented Raito.

"I see!" exclaimed L. "Shall I relate quantum physics and calculus to you, then?"

"Ryuzaki, you forget that the one thing I really love is peace and quiet. If you keep talking, I might have to kick you out of my bed."

L knew he would do no such thing. "Ah, but if you did, I would feel quite lonely, you know. You do not want me to be lonely, do you, Raito-kun?"

"Yes."

"Now you're just being difficult," L pouted.

"Lie down, Ryuzaki," demanded Raito.

L refused. He drew his knees into his chest and nibbled on his thumb. "I will not be ordered around like a dog."

"What if I _love_ it when men do what I ask?" Raito hummed seductively and turned on his side to face L.

"Then you're a woman," L pointed out.

Raito, instantly turned off, rolled his eyes and curled up with his back to L again.

Hm.

L must've said something wrong. In any case, it became apparent to L that Raito was not one to be wooed with words. Raito was also impervious to pleading. For an intellectual, Raito certainly reacted more to physical contact. Therefore, L concluded that the only method affecting Raito at any point in time was physical persuasion.

He stretched out on Raito's mattress and lay there, glaring at Raito's back for quite a while and planning his assault. The brunette knew it was coming, too. His back stiffened and he pressed his arms to his middle. L slithered over to him and snaked his arms around Raito's.

"Freak," muttered the brunette.

"You like freaks," said L. "Admit it."

Raito groaned and kicked L's pant-leg with his heel. L retaliated by winding his calf around the brunette's shin and imprisoning it there. The mini-death half expected Raito to elbow him in the face or some nonsense like that. The elbow never came, however. Raito deemed the situation unworthy of his attention and abandoned all hope of reclaiming his leg. This made L very happy.

What made L very _un_happy, however, was his inability to touch Raito's skin. The brunette had no shirt on. He was all soft, hot, bare skin from the waist up, and L couldn't enjoy it like he wanted to. He felt Raito's heat through his shirt, but he wanted to feel it with his fingers. Taste it, maybe.

(What did Raito taste like?)

L never quite got to feel anything other than the texture of his own clothing. When Raito punched him, L felt his shirt against his chest, accompanied only by the bruising indent of a fist. When he held Raito, the brunette was only a form against his clothing. The only time L had been truly blessed was when Raito's shirt-clad-knuckles collided with his face.

He didn't get to touch Raito, and it was pissing him off.

"You're not happy," Raito observed.

"I am not satisfied with my situation," L grouched.

Raito's heaving sigh was probably accompanied by another roll of the eyes. "This isn't good enough for you? _Why_ am I not surprised?"

"You are assuming," said L.

"Right. _What_ aren't you satisfied with?"

"This relationship is seriously lacking in intimacy," L grouched again. "Now, before you go assuming what I mean again, I dislike not being able to touch you."

"Ryuzaki, don't be such a freak." Raito deadpanned.

Raito was a very physical person. L knew this. Mello was also a very physical person. L began to wonder if all humans were this way. Near refused to become human in order to protect Mello. Thus, Mello lost interest and went searching for other means of entertaining himself. If L did not act, Raito would lose any interest he had.

L would lose him.

"…Ryuzaki, what are you grumbling about?"

"I do not want to lose you, Raito-kun," L stated.

Raito did not say anything overly sentimental. He did not comfort L with a 'you won't lose me' or an 'I'll love you forever' (stars fall _now_ if the latter _ever_ escaped Raito's lips). L did not expect the brunette to say anything. For a long while, Raito was predictable. Calm, quiet, and thoughtful.

And then, he became tense, as if he wanted to say something. "Wonder if Matt will ever come back," he sighed.

L did not like to assume. However, conjectures concerning Raito's mutterings were inevitable. If Matt came back, Raito had a new bodyguard. However, L felt uneasy leaving Raito's life in the hands of someone else. Matt didn't seem like the overenthusiastic mother hen type. He was calm, laid back, and lazy.

However, there was no proof that L could not protect Raito in a human state.

Maybe… he could go where Near could not.

Perhaps he could make it work.

As he was lost in thought, a familiar face hung itself upside-down in the window. As if summoned at the sound of his name, goggle-eyed Matt arrived in the window-well and cast both Raito and L an unreadable glance. For a second, L feared he would pop in and crash their party.

Matt did no such thing.

He grinned to himself. A secretive, knowing, impishly adoring sort of grin.

Nostalgic.

Matt gave L two thumbs up and mouthed 'HOME BASE!' before giggling silently to himself and winking off into the void.

L blinked at the window where Matt had been mere seconds ago.

Well. He had a substantial amount of human decency after all. L wondered at the sparkle in his eyes, though. Maybe Matt was a voyeur…

Suddenly, Raito sighed. "You really want to be a human, don't you?"

"Yes," L lamented.

Silence. "…It's not as great as you think."

"I do not care," L replied.

Raito elaborated, "You have to eat, sleep, shower, use the restroom, get sick, die…"

"I do not care," said L.

"Go to school, get a job, own a house, pay the bills…"

"I do not care," said L.

"And if you break the law, you have to go to jail."

"And then you have to kill me."

"You'd never do anything to make me want to kill you, Ryuzaki."

"Even if I murdered a thousand people with an electric blender?"

"Even if you murdered a thousand people with an electric- no, wait. This isn't the point," Raito mumbled. "The point is, it's difficult being human. Okay?"

"That is not what I am worried about," L pointed out. He pulled Raito closer into his chest. "I am worried that I will endanger you. I won't be able to stop the next disaster that happens to you, Raito-kun."

The brunette considered this. He turned the notion over and over in his head for a while. Raito began to tap on his arms with his fingertips and his ensnared leg flexed around L's calves.

"Maybe I can bully Matt around," he growled resentfully. "Even if I can't, maybe I'm not afraid to die anymore."

"Not afraid to die?" L's hopeful heart leapt into his throat.

"…No. Besides, I think I'll be fine. Maybe I'll find a few friends in hell or something."

"Perhaps you won't go to hell." L suggested.

Raito sighed tiredly. "Maybe not."

Trying vehemently to be optimistic, L wondered aloud, "Perhaps the shinigami no longer want to kill you. None of them have tried for a very long time."

"Why wouldn't they?" Raito grumbled.

"An allied power holding them back, perchance?" postulated the mini-death. "Or maybe they have lost interest."

Raito snorted to himself and snuggled in closer. Funny, L thought, because the brunette had never been a fan of snuggling. As Raito twisted around in the mini-death's arms to wrench his leg free and press his forehead into the hollow at the base of L's neck, L muttered, "You must've knocked a few screws loose earlier with Mikami. I almost fear that you've been in a state of temporary insanity for the past hour or so and this entire conversation will have completely left your mind by morning."

"Not crazy," Raito denied automatically.

Relieving, L thought.

Once he settled in, the brunette stayed there. He did not move for the rest of the night, even as his news program droned steadily by. By ten-seventeen, Raito's breaths came slowly and evenly. He was fast asleep.

L found himself unusually tired as well. The darkness in the windows and the stillness of the room made him sleepy. Raito's arms were tucked safely into his chest, so L didn't have to worry about being conspicuous. He floated to the top of the blankets to eliminate any trace of his being there in case Sayu came bumbling into the room.

L surprised himself, really. He hated closing his eyes. Bad things could happen when he couldn't see them. However, his eyelids fell over his eyes like lead curtains and he was unwilling to open them again. Raito rested securely in his arms and the pillows on his bed were beginning to feel irresistible.

Perhaps he was feeling tired because he could sleep easily now. Raito had all but ensured him that his love was returned. The brunette was softening up. He bragged that he no longer feared death.

L was at peace.

His last thought before losing consciousness against the soft lull of the television and the warmth of Raito's steadily beating heart was that Raito Yagami was the center of his universe. He loved Raito.

More than anything else.

--

Chibi Matt: -watching from two houses away with binoculars- Damn. Nothing happened.

Chibi Raito: -sleeeeeep…-

Chibi L: -moar sleeeeeep…-

Me: Well, readers. Any guesses as to what just happened?

Chibi Misa: And there you have it. More stuff for you to giggle over. Sorry for the wait, but it's nearing the end of the school year and teachers ALWAYS decide they want to pile homework on you at the last minute. Sucks, huh?

Me: FOUR GIANT ASSIGNMENTS IN ENGLISH DUE FIVE DAYS APART FROM EACH OTHER. I am sad.

Chibi Misa: Well, you read it. Might as well tell Swirl what you thought, huh? Cookies for you. Cyber cookies.

Matt: The kind that doesn't sit in your browser and tell people in Guatemala about all the porn you've been watching, mind you.

Chibi Misa: Review, review, review!


	17. The Humanity

**DS**

**Disclaimer:** This is fanfiction. Honestly. For all you know, I'm worth about as much as one third of the filament in a broken incandescent lightbulb. Also, for what it's worth, George Lucas owns the world. You just don't know it yet.

Me: Guess who I got to see on May 19th?

Chibi Raito: Barack Obama.

Me: YESSSSSSSSSS!! Live and in person! He actually came to my puny little city. I feel blessed.

Chibi L: Indeed.

Me: OBAMA BARACK'S MY SOCKS!

Chibi Misa: He Baracks Swirl's world.

Chibi L: This, however, is not a political campaign. This is a fanfic.

Me: Fine. But I'm tired of having stupid, old oil-barons in office who couldn't speak a single sentence if their lives depended on it. Thus ends my political tirade. Enjoy the show.

Chibi Misa: Read, review, and relax!

**D S 17**

"GET OUT OF MY SON'S BED!!"

Things happened very quickly after that.

L had been sleeping quite peacefully before Soichiro so rudely whacked him over the head with Raito's curtain rod. The next thing he knew, he was rolling about on Raito's floor, whining miserably for a reason briefly unknown to him. L then noticed an annoying, sharp throb in the corner of his eye. His head hurt. Soichiro was yelling. Raito woke up and yelled too. Sachiko hollered from some distant place beyond the hall and Sayu squeaked somewhere as well. All in all, the room had become quite noisy. L instantly decided that he didn't like it very much and he wanted it to go away.

L focused all of his energy into the floor, hoping to melt into it and away from this nonsense as quickly as possible.

This did not work.

L complained quite loudly when this did not work.

L's complaining amplified his nasty headache.

Damn.

--

(…)

(…?)

(…!)

(!!)

(!#&?!)

Raito really prided himself with his stellar reaction time. Being the star tennis player that he was, his arms could swing rackets right and left, just in time to deflect the ball exactly where he wanted it. Raito's reflexes scored him points in every game he played. His hand eye coordination stood unparalleled in all of Japa-

And then Ryuzaki was on the floor.

Damn.

The shock of it all was just too much for Raito's inhuman reflexes to handle. So he sat there for a moment or two, staring, blinking, wondering, observing the curious sight before him. Strange, wasn't it? There Soichiro was, face a delightful shade of shimmering red. Sayu squealed in the hall and tugged at her undone hair. Soichiro yelled something. What was it? Hmm…

And then there was Ryuzaki, shielding the back of his skull with his arms and complaining about something or another. Freak. Always complaining. He really needed to stop.

Hmm.

Wait.

…Oh.

_Ohhhhhhhhh…_

Raito was in shock and had no idea what to do about it. Maybe… if he waved his arms around… no. Too much. Raito refused. Perhaps he should have been yelling.

Yes.

Once he found his voice (which had been hiding somewhere down in his gut for the past few seconds), Raito yelled, "Dad! Dad, stop it!"

"GET OUT OF MY SON'S ROOM YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

"Dad! Stop!"

"-CHIEF OF POLICE AND I CAN HAVE YOU PUT IN JAIL FOR THE REST OF YOUR LI-"

"Dad, stop! Put it down! He's a friend! He's a-"

"-EVER COME BACK AGAIN I'LL SHOVE MY FOOT RIGHT UP YOUR-"

"Dad!" Raito grabbed a hold of the curtain rod and pulled it back over Soichiro's shoulder. "Dad, stop! He's my friend! He's my friend!"

"Yes! Friend! Friend!" Ryuzaki repeated shrilly with his knees curled pathetically into his chest and his arms stiffly crossed over the back of his neck.

Soichiro, fumes fizzling from his balding head, gasped and huffed with overexertion. He held his end of the curtain rod on high and forced Raito to focus all of his strength on pulling the other end down. Soichiro glared over his shoulder at his son, eyes dry and bloodshot. "Raito, what are you talking about?" he wheezed.

Meanwhile, Ryuzaki slowly curled himself into a ball, assuming the likeness of a recently dead spider.

Raito glanced pathetically at him from around Soichiro's heaving shoulders.

"Dad, he's…" Raito honestly dropped off. What was Ryuzaki? Was Ryuzaki Ryuzaki? If Ryuzaki was Ryuzaki, what would Soichiro do about Ryuzaki? Raito couldn't _possibly_ tell Soichiro the mini-death's name.

But…

Soichiro saw…

Soichiro _knew_…

Each muscle in Raito's body tightened to critical tension. Soichiro saw. He…_ saw._ He hit Ryuzaki in the head with a curtain rod. Hit him. Hit _him._

Hit…

Oh.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

No.

Ryuzaki was…

He _wasn't_.

He wasn't actually…

"Raito! Raito, I know what's going on. I know who this man is! This is the one who's been causing you so much trouble!" Soichiro foamed and roared.

Oh, fuck. Soichiro really _did_ recognize him. He really knew. This was it. Raito's cover was completely blown. Soichiro was going to arrest Ryuzaki for being Kira and send Raito to a funny farm for the rest of his life. Soichiro knew…

Raito's life was… over.

"Y-yes, Dad," Raito's voice began to shake along with the pitiful hold he had on the curtain rod, "This… this is Ryu-"

"Ryuga. Ryuga Hideki."

Ryuzaki stood up casually as if nothing had happened, was happening, or ever would happen for that matter. He brushed his pants off, smoothed his hair, and flicked a fleck of dirt off of his sleeve. Raito's jaw clamped shut.

"R-Ryuga… Hideki?" Soichiro muttered and lowered his end of the curtain rod.

"Yes," replied Ryuzaki, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. "I have many classes in common with Raito-kun. I planned to introduce myself sometime today, but it appears I have slept too long."

Soichiro and Raito both gaped like fish. "Well, wa- w- how- why were you sleeping in my son's bed?" Soichiro stammered.

"Raito-kun and I studied late last night and we both got tired, so we went to sleep."

"How did you get in?"

"I climbed through the window."

"Why?"

"Raito-kun informed me that his father did not like having strange men in the house. I assume that he was correct, yes?"

Soichiro stole a flabbergasted glance at his silently awed son. Raito felt the need to say something. "Well, it's true," he grumbled.

"I see I have disrespected you with my actions," Ryuzaki droned with a characteristic, prehistoric slump of the posture. "Please accept my apologies."

"I… accept. Now… how were you studying? What were you studying?" grilled Soichiro.

"Oh, not much, Yagami-san. Basic law. We went through some of Raito-kun's books and I accidentally knocked the bookcase over. I hid in the closet before you came up. Again, I am sorry."

"That's… that's fine." Soichiro blinked, bewildered and winded. Sayu peered curiously from the doorframe. Raito's father drew in a breath as if he wished to speak again. "So you aren't… Mikami Teru?"

Oh for the love of cotton candy and all that was holy. Raito nearly melted then and there with relief and shame, simultaneously. He assumed the worst and almost got himself and Ryuzaki killed. Soichiro didn't think Ryuzaki was Ryuzaki. He only suspected the mini-death of being Raito's secret love interest. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid…

"Mikami Teru?" Ryuzaki questioned curiously with his wide panda eyes, "Who is this?"

"Boyfriend," Raito grumbled.

"Ah!" The mini-death raised his thumb to his lips, "You flow that way? I never would have guessed. But this is not my business and it changes nothing. In any case, I am quite happy for you, Raito-kun."

"Thanks," muttered Raito.

An awkward sort of draft rolled through the room.

"I suppose… I'll be downstairs, then." Soichiro decided with a determined, frazzled nod. He glanced once more at the slouching, ceaselessly-gazing Ryuzaki as he bumbled out the door. "Sayu," he mumbled at his daughter, "come along. It's impolite to stare." The anxious little girl blinked quietly before beating a hasty retreat from the doorframe.

Raito and Ryuzaki were both left in deafening silence. The brunette glared stupidly at the door, mind still making shoddy attempts to register what had just happened to him. The brunette was confused. Very, very confused.

Raito's mind was not programmed for confusion. It searched for reactions to this foreign emotion, delving into the depths of the most forsaken, dusty shelves in the far reaches of his subconscious. Given the situation, it decided unanimously that Raito had better argue about it, because arguing was fun and it was quite easily done. This ease comforted Raito's brain.

So Raito drew his eyebrows down, snarled, and spat, "Ryuga Hideki? _That's _the best you could come up with?"

--

"Given that you had already disclosed half of my name, I saw no other choice," stated L. "And it was the only name I could think of at the time."

"Ryuga Hideki!" Raito swore, "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! You look nothing like him!"

"Perhaps, but I had no other choice, Raito-kun. Be thankful that I saved you." L defended.

Raito stood in his spot and stewed for a moment or two like an aggravated pressure cooker. He blinked furiously and words knotted on his tongue. "You're human!" he blurted finally.

Ah! The meat of the matter. L was human. So there. L was…

L was human.

_L_ was human.

Suddenly, he became painfully aware of _everything _around him. He really _was _human, wasn't he? _Human…_

_Alive._

The air… it smelled different. Not distant like before. Not dull and mellowed out. L could smell something buttery crackling on the stove downstairs. Flaky. Delightfully light and crunchy. Acrid. Slightly burnt. Abandoned for a moment on the skillet as Sachiko rushed to the bottom of the stairwell, hearkening to the ruckus in Raito's room…

The cars on the street. The traffic from miles away. A car horn. Seven birds chirping outside. Eight? The latch on a door clinked shut in a nearby house. Sayu. Babbling at one hundred miles an hour to an unwilling audience. L had always been able to hear exceptionally well, but never… quite like this.

The cotton in his sweater. Was it… dirty? Oily? Did it stink? No… L couldn't smell it. But he'd worn it for so long. Soft. His pants were too long. Too loose. They tickled his toes. His hair. It brushed against his eyelashes. Strange… There were a lot more grooves in Raito's floor than L realized.

And Raito…

God, was he gorgeous in the morning. Golden, vibrant halo of bed-head. Blush. _Angry_ blush. Slim. Thin. Not skinny, though. Tough, lean muscle. Fast, agile, sleek. Went well with his silver tongue. Smooth and flawless jaw line. Powerful lips. Amber eyes. A thousand shades of earth and honey. Glowed golden in Saturday's yellow morning light.

(Like an angel?)

"What are you staring at?" grumbled the brunette.

Growl. Vibrations. Mm… Not shallow and not deep. Just right.

"Seriously, what are you staring at?"

Wow.

And then, for the second time that morning, L's head hurt. He lost sight of Raito. This upset L, as he thought he hadn't seen something so perfect in his life. It then occurred to L that the reason for his change in vision was that Raito had punched him for staring.

(Had Raito… touched him?)

Physical boy.

Well, L was quite physical too.

He regained his senses and bent his palms against the floor before springing back and aiming a kick at the brunette's chin. He connected. _Connected­_. Raito's skin was surprisingly warm. Soft… "Raito-kun," he announced, "We're _fighting_."

Raito stumbled into the wall and stopped himself with his palm. He rebounded into the room and yelled, "You don't think I know that, you stupid prick?" The brunette punched again, catching the side of L's face. Dear heaven, did it hurt. But L _loved _it. The way the pain spread instantly through his face and his neck cricked at the sudden movement…

It all felt so real!

L felt something coil and tighten in his stomach. He felt lighter, faster, and stronger than he ever had before. Adrenaline pumped through his system and he decided that if Raito wanted to fight, the brunette would have his fight.

So L regained his balance and charged Raito straight into the wall. The brunette's back collided with the wall and a gale of air rushed noisily out of his lungs. "Ryuzaki!" he hissed as he palmed L in the jaw, "Someone is going to hear this!"

"I suppose you're right," L conceded, artfully ignoring Raito's hand, "But that doesn't make me want to stop."

Raito growled and shoved the mini-death's face to the side. "What if I beat you up? Will _that_ make you want to stop?"

"Perhaps," L mused around a sore neck, "Though I doubt you could."

"Ryuzaki…" Raito hissed, "I'm warning you. I'm human, I'm angry, and I've been holding back for the past few fights we've had. I know a few weaknesses of yours that you haven't found out yet."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and if you don't stop, you might find out sooner than you want to."

"Really, Raito?" goaded L, twisting his head to face Raito, despite the terrible pressure on his jaw, "Then show me these weaknesses. I am quite curious."

Raito smirked. "You asked for it."

And then, L was knocked completely off of his feet. His knees folded up under him and he curled around himself like a broken accordion. Pain… Unbelievable pain… Mind-numbing, gut-wrenching, bone-jarring, disgusting, horrifying, nauseating agony.

Raito had… kicked him.

…_There_ of all places.

L curled up like an armadillo and bit down on his tongue. Every limb, hands and feet and whatever else, shot to a central point. He rolled around for a second, hoping that the pain would somehow dissipate into the atmosphere. L thought he heard Raito laughing.

Stupid Raito.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid-

"You remember that," Raito cackled. L cracked open one eye just to see Raito recite in a very Shakespearean manner, "And with this power, I will control you."

L felt quite miffed at the biased nature of his pain. He was a strong believer in equality, so he thought it only fair that his agony be shared evenly throughout the room. So he somersaulted toward Raito, aimed, and returned the favor.

Raito was cut off mid 'oh no you don't' and he went careening to the floor. He curled up and he cursed with his tongue in his teeth in much the same way L had. The brunette rolled onto his other side, much in the same way L had. There were currently two men writhing about on Raito's floor in like states of infernal agony, differing only in that one was further along in his suffering than the other.

"Ryuzaki," Raito hissed through a tangled mass of elbows and knees, "you dirty bastard."

L growled, "Perhaps you should stop calling me that. I'm Ryuga Hideki, you know."

"Well, fuck you, Ryuga Hideki."

"Some other time. Right now, I do not think it would work…"

Raito made a strange, strangled, gargling noise in the back of his throat.

L lay there on the floor as his pain gradually began to dissolve. He was really, truly human now, wasn't he? He hadn't felt anything so terrifically excruciating in his life. Being human _used_ to feel wonderful until a minute ago.

Wonderful or not, L now had to face the predicament of his lifetime. He was no longer intangible. He was now a part of the human world. L could feel pain. He could get hurt.

L could die.

And so could Raito.

--

Really, Raito should have foreseen it. Two things, actually. The first of which being Ryuzaki's imminent retaliation for his kick to the groin. The second of which being his father's curiosity.

Ryuzaki, however, never ceased to amaze.

"Oh yes," he replied casually with a sip of his sugar-laden coffee, "I assure you, this is true. My parents deeply disliked me for the color of my eyes. I was born in Liverpool and both my father and my mother had blue eyes. I have black eyes. Terribly strange, you see."

"Yes," mused Soichiro suspiciously, "Very, very strange."

Well, it was Soichiro's fault for asking Ryuzaki about his past, anyway. Raito had expected the ex-mini-death to whip some bullshit story out of his ass, but he had to admit, he was thoroughly impressed.

"I digress," observed Ryuzaki with another casual sip. "Since my family disliked me so, they shut me in a wooden crate at a very young age. They only allowed me out every once in a while. Bathroom breaks, you know. My mother owned a candy shop, so she fed me anything no one else bought. I grew quite accustomed to sweet things, as you can see," Ryuzaki dropped another sugar cube into his coffee and stirred it in.

"As I grew older, I learned English by listening to my mother argue with her customers. I learned to read because my father was deaf and he required subtitles at the bottom of the television screen, which I could watch through the slits in my crate. I knew only how to complain since half of my vocabulary was made up of expletives, so my mother tossed the day's crossword and su-do-ku puzzles into my crate in order to shut me up. I was left alone much of the time with these puzzles and I became quite good at them."

"But you didn't have a pen," growled Soichiro.

"Precisely," said Ryuzaki. "I memorized each of my entries."

"I see…"

Ryuzaki cast a bland look at Raito's father. "I must apologize for my posture. You see, as I grew, my living space did not. It has ruined my back. Again, I apologize."

"No, that isn't necessary," Soichiro remarked, obviously fascinated.

"Thank you," said Ryuzaki. "As I was saying, I became quite good at puzzles. They further strengthened my knowledge. At night, when it was too dark to see, I was left with nothing to do but think to myself. I could not sleep, you see, because I only ate sweet things. I still do not sleep well, simply because I am used to sleepless nights."

"Go on," hummed Soichiro, who looked far more interested in this narrative than Raito found necessary. He sat at the table, chin resting on the palm of one hand, eyes attentive and bright. Raito sat bemusedly in the chair next to Ryuzaki, trying not to seem as enthralled by the ex-mini-death's imagination as he actually was. Sayu sat bravely next to Soichiro, swinging her legs back and forth and sipping a glass of milk through a pink bendy-straw. Sachiko eavesdropped from the kitchen.

"My life continued in this way for twenty years. Eventually, my mother and father grew bored of me. They snuck me onto a cargo ship destined for Tokyo Bay. I stayed silent the entire trip, fearing that I would be thrown overboard. I do not know how to swim. Once I was back on dry land, however, I wasted no time in making as loud a commotion as I could manage. I sensed an opportunity to escape my prison once and for all. Once the crate opened, I shot out and ran as fast as I could. You would be surprised how fast one can run on an empty stomach, especially when one has been trapped in a crate all one's life."

"Yes," mused Soichiro. "And no one caught you?"

"Of course not."

"I find it odd that Sakura TV never mentioned a story about a man shipped to Tokyo in a crate."

"Ah, yes. Well, I suppose a city the size of Tokyo has many more interesting stories to tell."

"Perhaps, but I still find that story of yours a bit… incredible."

"Life would be quite mundane without an incredible story of survival now and then, would it not?"

Soichiro sighed. "And how is it that you found your way into my son's university?"

"Well…"

And Ryuzaki went on a fantastic verbal crusade. He described feeling lost and alone in the back alleys of Tokyo for several months, dumpster-diving for candy bars and gutter-surfing for quarters. He visited a soup kitchen once and disliked the food. His first job was as a personal garbage disposal at a doughnut joint. He wandered about Tokyo for a year or two, like a job-seeking graveyard ghost, offering to take any job that involved food. Ryuzaki then got a job at a bookstore, which conveniently closed and dropped off of the face of the earth after he left. There, he read every book and solved every Sherlock Holmes whodunit mystery ever written.

A nameless, recently retired To-Oh professor recognized his talents and offered him the opportunity to go to school for free. And now, there he was, twenty-three years old, homeless, and quite content with his life.

Soichiro nodded, perhaps accepting Ryuzaki's story, _definitely_ accepting Ryuzaki's insanity, and ending the conversation then and there.

Sayu continued swinging her legs cutely from the chair. She gazed at the ex-mini-death and said, "Ryuga-san, don't you have a house?"

"No," replied Ryuzaki.

"That's sad," whined Sayu. "Where do you go after school?"

"The library," said Ryuzaki.

"Which library?" quizzed Soichiro.

"Oh, none in particular. Whichever is closest to me at the time."

Sly little bastard, that Ryuzaki. He always had an ambiguous answer to anything. Raito sat beside him, relaxed and politely bored-looking as ever. He really hoped his father wouldn't ask anything _too_ specific. Before Soichiro had a chance to open his mouth again, however, Sachiko burst into the room.

"Well, now that we've all gotten to know each other," she beamed unusually brightly in Soichiro's general direction. Raito's father got the hint and grumbled to himself. "It was nice meeting you," he addressed the ex-mini-death as he rose from his chair. "It's always nice to meet one of my son's friends." And then, he addressed Raito. "I'll be at work. So long."

"Bye," said Raito.

Sachiko chattered pleasantly as Soichiro grudgingly slipped his coat on and walked out the door. Both Raito and Ryuzaki stared after him. "Working on Sunday," Ryuzaki remarked to the room, "I admire your father, Raito-kun."

"Yeah, well he's got a really important job!" bounced Sayu. "He's working on the Kira case!"

Sachiko suggested quickly, "Sayu! Why don't you bake something for our guest?"

"Oh yes!" The ex-mini-death piped up instantly. "Raito-kun has brought me pieces of your cake. It is quite delicious."

Sayu glowed pink with pride and flattery. "You really think so?" She jumped up and down before dashing into the kitchen and complaining to her mother about how Soichiro probably wouldn't let the poor, homeless man with the eyes live in the house.

Raito sat quietly at Ryuzaki's side and considered his feelings. He felt horribly out of control regarding Ryuzaki's metamorphosis into a human being. He felt fluttery, almost. Like he'd woken up in someone else's body and he didn't know what to do with it. How would he keep from dying? Matt didn't seem at all fit to be his bodyguard. Raito got the impression that the brunette mini-death slacked off too often.

No.

He couldn't think about that now. Ryuzaki was right earlier when he said the Shinigami hadn't been making attempts on his life. If he was lucky, their hiatus would last longer. Raito just had to convince Matt to stick by him.

As he was thinking about this, another matter presented itself.

Where was he going to hide Ryuzaki?

He couldn't just allow the ex-mini-death to wave farewell and walk off into the street. He just… couldn't.

What if…

Something happened to him?

"Raito-kun does not seem happy," Ryuzaki remarked offhandedly.

No. He wasn't happy. Not only could _Raito_ die, but…

Ryuzaki could die too.

"I'm fine," Raito replied. "Just wondering how you managed to come up with all that crap in five seconds."

"It is an art," said Ryuzaki.

Raito sighed, trying to empty his head of depressing thoughts. "Guess I'm going to have to get used to calling you Ryuga, huh?"

"Or Hideki. Or Hideki-chan."

"That's way too cute for you. Doesn't fit you at all."

"Raito-kun does not think I am cute?"

"No way."

"Oh, Raito-kun. That makes me sad," said Ryuzaki.

"You can't pull that trick on me. I invented it yesterday," retorted Raito.

"Ah. But it worked so well on me," the ex-mini-death sighed forlornly with his thumb in his teeth.

"Now you're just being a smartass," Raito grumbled.

Instead of coming up with yet another smart comment, Ryuzaki drew his knees up to his chest on his chair, tilted his head comically, and asked, "How does one go about entertaining oneself on a Sunday?"

"Why do you ask?" inquired Raito.

"I am quite bored," said Ryuzaki.

To the point, wasn't he?

"Well, we can watch TV, we can go for a walk, we can sit in my room and scheme all day-"

"The last of which I have had quite enough of."

"Fine. I don't want to leave the house, though," remarked Raito. He rose from his dining chair and marched to the sofa.

"Still paranoid, are we?"

_For more reasons than Ryuzaki could possibly know…_

"No, just tired. I got a rude awakening this morning," Raito grumbled to himself as he grabbed the remote and turned the television on.

Ryuzaki was silent. Raito refused to turn around and watch his reaction. He could feel the ex-mini-death's purposeful footsteps padding closer. For a brief moment, Ryuzaki was directly behind him and the brunette tensed as he walked by. The ex-mini-death settled on the other half of the sofa. "Raito-kun is worried."

"I am not," huffed Raito.

The ex-mini-death circled an arm around Raito's waist and the brunette listlessly allowed himself to be pulled down. "You do not have to worry," said Ryuzaki.

"Sayu is going to see this," Raito griped from his spot on Ryuzaki's lap.

"It does not seem to bother you," remarked the panda-eyed human.

"Well it does," complained Raito.

"Then get up."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Too much work."

The Millennium Falcon glittered across the television screen and the translated voices of Han Solo and C-3PO mingled with Sayu's kitchen humming. Raito was half afraid that Sayu would peek underneath the hanging cabinets and see her older brother draped across the lap of another man. Half afraid. But she and Sachiko zipped around the kitchen, talking to one another and ignoring Raito and Ryuzaki completely.

"It is quite a nice day," Ryuzaki remarked suddenly. "I think we should go outside."

"Let's stay in," Raito countered immediately. "I'm too lazy to go outside anyway."

Ryuzaki said nothing.

--

Something was not right, and L knew exactly what it was. Granted, it was a preposterous thought. Raito's pride would not allow it, and under any other circumstances, L would assume that Kira was merely worried about his own welfare.

Kira, however, announced last night that he was no longer afraid to die.

He was unafraid, and yet he did not want to leave the house. He knew that if he left, L would go with him.

And the notion struck L like a brick wall.

Raito was afraid that something would happen to L.

…Well.

L glanced down at Raito. The brunette lay on his side in L's lap, bemusedly tapping the cushions of his couch with his fingertips and looking profoundly angry at the wall behind the television. L ran his fingers through Raito's smooth, glossy hair. He sighed, "Raito-"

"I hate being emotionally attached to people," Raito interrupted blandly.

"Really," deadpanned L, derailed completely from his previously sentimental track.

"Yes. It's horrible. This is _exactly_ why I hate women. They're so clingy and they think it's my _job_ to worry about them all the time. I hate it. I _hate_ it."

"I see," said L. He quickly assessed the situation and concurred that Raito was letting off steam again, so any opinion of L's would be cast aside without consideration.

"Y'know, I actually considered screwing a guy once. They're not like women. Wham, bam, goodbye Sam. Easy as that. No 'call me later' crap. At least I'm not like that. At least I _wasn't_ like that. Now look. I'm emotionally attached to a _guy_. Of all people. Me!" Raito waved an arm in the air and let it drop miserably to the wooden floor.

"Yes," L hummed sagely, "quite a problem."

Raito twisted around in L's lap and settled down with his back to the couch cushions. He glared up at L with honestly vexed, angry brown eyes. "Are you making fun of me?"

L blinked down at the miffed brunette in his lap. "No," he said.

Raito grumbled on. "Women. Always babbling about how much they love you. All of them are infected with mushy, emotional, chronic diarrhea of the mouth. One of my past dates got angry at me because I planned to go to a different college than she did. I am _not_ about to change my life for a stupid, lovesick teenage puppy. I can't believe she thought I could stand her until college anyway. She was always making comments about how _cute_ I looked in green. When I didn't wear the piece-of-shit bracelet she made for me, she cried. I hate women," Raito repeated, "I hate them."

L blinked flatly. "Are you quite finished?"

"No."

"Well, then. By all means, continue," deadpanned L.

Raito mimicked L's careless blink. "You don't want to hear any of this, do you?"

"No," said L.

The brunette's shoulders slumped, as if the comment relieved him somehow. "Good," he sighed selfishly and crossed his arms, "because I'd hate to be emotionally glued to a guy who wants to hear about all my _fucking_ problems."

"Happy day," remarked L.

"Because I'm not a woman," said Raito.

"There is no doubt in my mind," sighed L as he ensnared another tuft of Raito's hair. "Though it does feel nice, doesn't it?"

"What?"

"Being anchored to someone."

"Ryu… Hideki, I'm a college guy. The last thing I want is commitment."

"I suppose. But why is it that people get married, then?" L quizzed with a tilt of the head.

"Oh, God, _Hideki_, don't tell me about marriage," the brunette lamented and smacked himself in the forehead.

"Fine," L deadpanned. "I do not think I could stand to sleep in the same room as you until death do us part anyway."

"Good."

L thought it a strange thing to say.

"You guys are talking about_ marriage_?" Sayu squawked from the kitchen. L turned his head quickly around and Raito casually stretched out of his spot on the ex-mini-death's lap. The little Yagami girl stood in the doorway, looking confused and strangely excited all at once. Her eyebrows jutted out at odd angles and her nose was scrunched up on one side.

"We were just talking about how stupid it is," yawned Raito.

"_He _was just talking about how stupid it is," L pointed an accusing finger at the brunette. "I find it interesting."

"That's because your head is full of flowers," griped Raito loudly.

L cast him a strange glance.

"Well…" hummed Sayu in a manner L wasn't quite comfortable with. "That's kinda'… weird. The cake will be out in just a few minutes." She then tip-toed into the room and whispered, "Not all girls are like that, Raito, but the ones that aren't are sluts."

"What?" Raito deadpanned. And then L got to watch as Raito's delicately tanned skin blossomed slowly in a mild shade of angry red. He droned, "Sayu, how long have you been standing there?"

"Oh, just long enough," she giggled.

"How long is long enough?" Raito growled gravely.

"Raito and Hideki, sittn' in a tree…"

Raito vaulted over the back of the couch and marched purposefully after his sister. Sayu squealed and raced around the kitchen island.

L didn't bother getting up.

"K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" giggled a hysterical Sayu from the kitchen.

"Sayu, if you don't shut your mouth _right_ now…" growled Raito.

"What are you two fighting about?" demanded Sachiko.

"First comes love, then comes _marriage_-"

"Shut up, Sayu! My God!"

"Sayu, stop antagonizing your brother!"

The commotion in the kitchen lasted quite a while. L leaned back over the top of the couch and peered into the epicenter of the action. Sayu had tactfully hidden behind Sachiko and Raito was indignantly glaring at both of them. The brunette stood unusually calmly in his defiance, casting a dark, ominous, silently angry shadow across the room. He could tell by the look on Sachiko's face that Sayu had blabbed her way into infamy. Sayu's little smile was withering in the fury of Raito's confined, boiling rage.

L began to feel sorry for her.

"Raito-kun!" he yelled into the kitchen. The angry brunette lurched slowly around, eyes glaring, jaw set, lips pressed to a fine, displeased line. "Leave your sister alone," said L.

Raito glared at L. L glared at Raito. Raito turned around and glared at Sayu. Sayu gazed miserably at L. L grinned at Sayu. Sayu hid.

"Now what is going on, here?" Sachiko asked unhappily.

"Nothing is going on," denied Raito with a slouch.

"Well something is going on, otherwise you two wouldn't be at each other's throats. Now tell me what all of this nonsense is about."

Neither Raito nor Sayu said a word.

In the interest of keeping the house a war-free zone, L intervened. He got up from the couch and sashayed to the kitchen as if nothing had happened. "A simple misunderstanding is all. My apologies."

Sachiko blinked at him as if she never expected him to be part of the problem. She glanced back at Sayu, who pursed her lips and looked away. Raito didn't wait for his cue. He smoothed his hair and marched back into the living room with his tail held high.

L watched him leave before turning to the remaining occupants of the room.

"You are going to bake me a cake," L stated simply. Sayu blinked at him. L continued, "This argument never happened. You remember nothing. These are not the droids you're looking for."

Feeling very, very silly, L slid on his heels and performed a quick about-face before bumbling back into the living room. He slid into his previous spot next to an eerily subdued Raito Yagami. "Feeling better?" he asked the stoic, stone face.

"Yes," it replied.

"Nice and calm?" asked L.

"Nice and calm," it replied.

L sat in estranged silence for another second or so. "The cake smells delicious," he announced to everyone in the house.

"I think the argument ruined the cake," Raito said earnestly.

"Nonsense!" declared L. "Nothing ruins a cake! Not sun, nor rain, nor sleet, nor hail."

A tiny, half-sad giggle came from the kitchen. Raito shot it an evil glare and L turned just quickly enough to see Sayu retreat behind the island. The oven beeped and Sayu shuffled quietly over to it. Once the cake had cooled off, Sachiko brought one plate for Raito and one for L. They said their thanks and both Raito and L's cakes were eaten in less than twenty seconds.

By the same person.

"Even more delicious than I remember," remarked L after swallowing the last of his second slice. "You don't suppose I could have another, do you?" he asked with his thumb to his lips.

"Of course!" smiled Sachiko. Meanwhile, Sayu hung back in the kitchen, just watching.

L ate his third slice, then a fourth. Cake tasted so much better now… He never realized how soft and spongy and buttery and sweet it was until then. He wasted no time in complementing the chef. "If I could eat cake like this all day every day, I would be in heaven."

"Well…" Sayu finally spoke up, drawing a circle on the wooden floor with her toe, "Maybe I could bake you one every day…"

"That would be grand," L fantasized.

As the panda-eyed human floated around in cake-batter-la-la-land, Sachiko excused herself from the room with the excuse that she had a few errands to run. She asked her daughter if she wanted to go as well. Sayu declined. Sachiko left.

An expanse of nothingness was left in her wake.

And then, Sayu spoke.

"Um…" she tentatively approached the couch. "Raito… I'm sorry. I really shouldn't have done that."

Raito was silent for a while. "You didn't tell her anything, did you?" he grumbled.

Sayu's eyes sparkled and she ran over to the opposite bend of the couch. "So it's true? You guys are-"

"Yes," Raito bit, visibly struggling to restrain his annoyance.

"Oh," Sayu squeaked and twiddled her thumbs. "Sorry."

Raito slumped in his seat and sighed. "It's fine."

Sayu hesitated for a long while. This was all the silence L needed to polish off his fifth piece of cake. He set his fork and his plate aside. Then, Sayu timidly broke the hum of the television and the clinking of dinnerware. "I don't mean to be rude or anything, but… are you guys really…?"

L abandoned Raito with a nudge, a raised eyebrow, and an airy glance to the television screen. The brunette glared at him, then blew a puff of air at his bangs. "Yeah. It's true."

"That's so cool!" Sayu bubbled, bouncing on the sofa. "That's like, the cutest thing ever! Wait till I tell-"

"You aren't. Telling. Anybody." Raito resolved.

Sayu's excitement boiled off fairly quickly. "Okay," she yielded and returned to her previous state of embarrassment.

"You can't tell _anybody_," Raito reinforced, "Not mom, not dad, not any of your friends. Nobody. Okay?"

"Okay…" Sayu squeaked.

Raito sighed for the umpteenth time that day. "I'm not trying to be mean, but if Dad finds out, he'll kill me."

Sayu nodded.

L felt it was about time he interjected. "Yes. It would make me quite sad if Raito were killed. Then I would have no one to bring me your cake."

Raito elbowed him in the side. Sayu giggled. "You guys are so cute! Raito, you're all mad and Ryuga-san, you're all… wow."

"Is this a good wow or a bad wow?" L asked.

"It's a good wow. I mean, you're really weird-looking, but-"

"Sayu!" Raito warned.

"Calm down," commanded L. "I am well aware of how strange I look. You have told me this numerous times, Raito-kun."

Raito rolled his eyes.

"You don't look anything like the actor," said Sayu.

"I am well aware of this as well," L replied.

"You guys are still really cute," Sayu bubbled cutely on her side of the sofa. "I came into your room this morning, Raito, and I saw you guys all cuddled up. That's why I eavesdropped on you guys. Sorry." She scratched her scalp nervously and grinned.

"Ah. So you are the cause of the commotion this morning?" L quirked an invisible eyebrow.

"Um, yeah. Sort of. Sorry."

"Hmm," hummed L. He contentedly pulled a scowling, deadweight brunette back into his lap.

--

He was doing it again.

That cool thing where Ryuzaki acted as if nothing was wrong.

But perhaps Raito should have followed his lead. It would do him no good, after all, to throw a fit. He had nothing to gain from an explosion of anger, much less toward his little sister, so Raito swallowed his pride and extinguished it.

Suddenly, something popped out of the television.

It was Matt.

"You two are unusually snuggly," he said. In response to this, Raito glanced over at his little sister, who was still mooning at Ryuzaki and himself, thankfully oblivious. He then yawned and stretched out of the ex-mini-death's lap. Ryuzaki eyed Matt queerly. "Raito-kun, do you suppose we could take a walk?"

"I suppose," Raito yawned. "Sayu, we'll be right back."

Sayu pouted. "Can't I come with you?"

"No," replied Raito. "Guy time. You know, just the two of us."

"Fine," she mumbled with a knowing glitter in her eye. "You better come back soon though, just like you said."

"Yes, mom," said Raito. He rose elegantly from the couch, slid leisurely to the door, and waited for Ryuzaki. Panda Eyes slouched along after him.

And then Matt, as if noting something very, very peculiar, slid his lower jaw out and clicked his tongue. "Dude, L," he mumbled, "She can see you. The chick over there."

Ryuzaki and Raito both subtly motioned him out of the television set. Matt ghosted across the ceiling and crouched on the wall near the doorway, eyes wide in puzzlement. Raito wished his sister well before sauntering out the door.

The instant he was outside, Ryuzaki turned to Matt and said, "Laugh, and I will kill you."

"Kill me?" asked Matt.

"No," said Ryuzaki, "but I will be very sad."

Matt appeared to roll the idea about in his head for a while. Eventually, he asked, "Why would I laugh?"

And then, Raito felt his hair being pulled by Ryuzaki. The brunette refused to yelp. Instead, he reached out and evened the score. "Ow," said Ryuzaki.

Matt looked on in loose-limbed wonder. "Dude," he breathed, "you're a fuckin' _human_!"

"Yes," Ryuzaki mumbled in a half-whine.

"You screwed up _big_ time," gaped Matt.

Ryuzaki fluffed up his scraggly, proverbial raven feathers and growled, "I do not think it's such a bad thing."

Matt appeared to consider this. Very quietly, he hummed and dug his hands into his pockets. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. "So, I take it you did it for _this_ loser, huh?"

Ryuzaki kept unusually silent. Raito glanced over at him, not entirely liking the sober look in his eyes. Ryuzaki thought for a moment before saying, "There are two sides to this coin, I suppose."

"Yeah," Matt agreed much too quietly. "You can stick with 'em and protect 'em, or you can morph your way straight into their pants. Nice choice, I'd say."

"If you want to put it crudely," muttered the ex-mini-death.

"Yeah," mooned Matt, soul only partially inhabiting the conversation. "Seems like the right thing to do, staying invisible and helping people out. But it's a lot harder than it looks, isn't it? Sometimes people get tired of help. Just want to be close to somebody."

Matt was getting at something, and Raito could smell it. In the midst of his conversation, he'd drifted away from the house and both Ryuzaki and Raito followed him.

Ryuzaki once told Raito that Matt had an 'interesting story.' Perhaps this was part of it. "You had this problem too, didn't you?" he accused.

"Hm? Me? Oh no. Not me. Someone else," answered Matt. "The other Kira, actually."

And now Raito's attention was casually and unassumingly ignited. He raised an eyebrow. "Mello?"

"…Yeah, him. But I don't really want to talk about him right now. He's dead and gone and we aren't. I don't like messing around with dead stuff. Dirty and smelly, you know?" Matt dismissed.

Damn.

Raito would not let Matt off so easily, however.

"You were a friend of Mello's?" the brunette pushed. The mini-death's eyes narrowed slightly in response. Calculating and curious. "And why would you want to know?" Matt asked.

Raito decided to tell him the truth. "Ryuzaki won't tell me anything about him."

"That is not true," the ex-mini-death denied. "I have told you many things."

"Wrong," said Raito.

Ryuzaki sulked.

Matt tilted his head in amusement and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Well… I'll make you a deal. For every hour I get to play your video games, I'll tell you one thing about him. Whatcha' think?"

Personally, Raito had seen the movie _Big Fish_ and understood the consequences of a loose agreement such as this. "How about… you tell me about Mello in at least fifty words, _relevantly_, for each hour you get to play video games. And you have to respond _relevantly_ to everything I ask, starting within three minutes of my asking."

"Iz trap set by sneaky Japanese person," hummed Matt in his Sven accent. He considered Raito's proposal for a minute or two, keeping pace with the strolling teen and his previously-inhuman partner by hopping up and down across the gutter. "But… say I deem your question inappropriate. Say I don't want to answer. Can I tell you to ask another question?"

"Then you'll just deny all of my questions," growled Raito.

"Jeez. What do you think I am? A Bond villain?" Matt grouched. He grumbled for another moment before muttering, "Fine. For every five hours, then."

"An hour and a half," bargained Raito.

"Four hours," hissed Matt.

"Two hours," said the brunette.

"Three and a half hours!" yelled Matt.

"Six hours!" yelled Raito.

"One hour!" yelled Matt.

"Seven hours!" yelled Raito.

"Half an hour!" roared Matt.

"Done," Raito replied calmly.

"That's right," bragged Matt. "Just give up."

Raito smirked. Really, he never thought he could get away with it. Matt didn't seem that… well… stupid. Nevertheless, he tried and succeeded. He made a show of his defeat. "You're quite the negotiator."

Ryuzaki snorted at the both of them. "How very Bugs Bunny of you, Raito-kun."

Matt zoned completely. "Bugs Bunny?" he asked, confused. Ryuzaki responded with a nod and nibbled on his thumb. "Yes," said the ex-mini-death, "You know, rabbit season, duck season?"

"You mean wabbit season," corrected Matt.

Raito knew for a fact that Ryuzaki would never agree to say anything of the sort.

And then Matt's lips pursed in agonizing confusion. Realization seeped into his eyes like a slithering cloud of blue in a glass of water. "Wait," he muttered. "What did I agree to, exactly?"

"Fifty words per half an hour," grinned Raito.

"Well _I_ never agreed to it!" the brunette mini-death denied defiantly.

"But I did, and that's all that matters," said Raito.

Matt sulked. "Fine. Be that way. Maybe I _let _myself get tricked in order to indulge you in _all _the information you can eat, guilt free."

(Oh really?)

"Awfully nice of you," remarked Raito in his Smart-Alec voice.

As Matt griped and groaned about his unfair contract, Raito formulated his plan of action. Not only did he want information about Mello, but he also wanted another source of protection. If he rented his television out to Matt…

No.

Matt's personality favored wanton disregard of social acceptability. He would play his video games regardless of who else was watching. Raito would be in deep trouble if Soichiro walked in one morning and found his son's television and wii-mote bowling all by themselves.

He would have to bribe Matt. He would have to buy him expensive portable games and expensive wireless headphones. He would have to dedicate a shrine to _Final Fantasy_ in the back of his closet.

Raito had no qualms about doing this. He received an admirable sum of money from his parents, so he was perfectly capable of affording Matt's company.

He proposed this to his roommate to be. "Matt, I'd like to make another proposal to you."

"What, you want an arm?" grumbled Matt in his peculiar over-the-top sort of way. "Here, have my leg too. Don't be shy, Kira! Take it!"

"Actually, I wanted to buy you something."

"Then by all means, do go on," the brunette mini-death smiled sweetly.

"I want to buy you a DS," said Raito. "Maybe a PSP too. I'll even make a special place for you in my closet so you can hang out. How's that sound?"

"There's a catch. There's always a catch," growled Matt spitefully. He took his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms mistrustfully.

"Well, all I'm asking is that you stay there. You know, just sit there and stuff. Relax. Play your video games. Maybe go out on a walk with Ryuzaki and me once in a while-"

"You want a bodyguard," observed Matt.

_Well, now that the cat was out of the bag…_

"Yes. Something like that," admitted Raito with a suave flick of the hair.

"Do I get to keep my car?" frowned Matt.

If it would sway his attitude, "Yes."

"And you're paying for all this? No loopholes? No questions asked?"

"Yes."

"Hmm…" hummed the mini-death, snapping the straps on his goggles. "You _do_ know that I'm a video game addict, don't you? I mean, I might just fall in love…"

True… But Raito was clean out of options. Ryuzaki suddenly remarked, "I think he knows when enough is enough." The ex-mini-death's words held more underlying meaning than the ambiguous sugarcoat he surrounded them in, but Raito trusted his judgment. "My offer still stands, Matt," Raito announced diplomatically. "Just let me know when you want to accept."

The oddly-dressed mini-death vaulted effortlessly onto the fence and brooded impishly. "Ho-hum," he sighed. "Guess I'll have to think about it."

--

Me: Om nom nom. Done within a month, yezno?

Chibi Misa: And with finals riding up on your ass…

Me: Oh yes. Because in Montana, we can't _possibly_ get school over with. No. School District 2 just has to drag it on and on and on and on and on and on…

Chibi Raito: And then, in a year, when high school is over, you have to go to college and _PAY_, which could quite possibly be the end of your life, financially speaking.

Me: I'm stuck between majors. I want an art degree, a degree in writing, and I want to own my own gaming company (the last of which I WILL do, by God. And I will make you play my RPGs. Play them. Plaaayyyy theeeemmmm…). If any of you go to a university with a stellar English program, feel free to advertise. I am also interested in whether or not your university is frequented by good-looking, rich men. 8D

Chibi L: Think of how much money you'll be saving those greedy tuition-monsters by word of mouth instead of glossy USELESS postcards (NYU, you treeslayer).

Chibi Misa: In any case, review. Swirl loves feedback, because it reminds her of food. You know. Feedback. Ha ha. Review, review, review!


	18. Good Cop, Bad Cop

DS

**DS**

**Disclaimer:** lol disclaimer what's that?

Me: Special thanks to kate avalanche, LynLin, and dragontwister for their responses to my college question! Also, thanks to Danielle Anderson for not eating me. So anyway, I was reading through my reviews on ffnet, trying to see if I missed anything, and I noticed a nice, little button off to the right of each one. It said 'abuse.' Like a command. So every time I see one, I think about clicking it and abusing you.

Chibi Raito: -abuse, abuse, abuse-

Chibi L: D:

Chibi Misa: Like always, sit back in your office chair and enjoy! Read, review, and relax!

**D S 18**

In the past, Raito Yagami frequently fantasized about his future. He envisioned himself as a CEO or an infamous private detective like A or W. His fame and fortune would gladly accommodate a gigantic house, complete with multiple collector vehicles and a smokin' hot wife. He would have his own private mountain range and enough money to pay for ten more houses and five-hundred more cars he would never visit in his life. He would be so rich, famous, and stunning, that women would come from the other side of the world just to faint at his feet.

And yet fate was cruel.

Raito brooded as he stood at the entryway to Mikami's apartment building. He always imagined himself as a big-shot. Never attached to anyone. Women clinging to him like starved, crazed, beaten wolverines.

But there he was, stuck living in his parents' house, stuck using the public transport system, stuck between not one, but two human beings, and to top it all off, he was surrounded completely by men.

Men.

_Men._

Teru loomed a few stories above, Matt lurked inside of the public ashtray to his right, and Ryuzaki whistled off to his left. Teru, Matt, and Ryuzaki in one room all at once could be likened to playing catch with a bottle of nitroglycerin. In fact, Raito didn't fully understand why he had agreed to this meeting in the first place.

Trusting Little Teru had called him last night, asking to get together with him for lunch. Well, Raito felt ridiculously sorry for him, and 'No' would have been a horrible thing to say.

Since when did Raito experience guilt anyway?

Christ on a cracker.

Anyhow, Raito's answer was a playful 'why not?'

This, as the brunette soon concluded, was the wrong answer. Ryuzaki, who had been rolling around on his bed with nothing else to do, suddenly announced that he was no longer invisible. Raito understood this. Ryuzaki also stated that he would not allow Raito to abandon him in favor of two-timing with an older man, of whom the ex-mini-death did not approve.

Raito had a perfect plan of action at first. Flawless, really. He would drag Ryuzaki over to Teru's flat, introduce him as Hideki, and mention offhandedly that _this_ was the friend he had fallen out with a while ago. Granted, this was not normal protocol to follow when invited to someone's house, _privately_, for a _private_ date and some _private_ romance afterward. Teru was quite the hopeless romantic. He would probably assume that Raito was bringing a friend over for emotional security because he wanted to slither past another heated make-out session.

This was only _partially_ true.

Ryuzaki made the casual, offhanded, dim-witted remark that Teru's evening would end in tears and Raito didn't want _that_ because he felt _sorry_ for the poor bastard.

Politely, Raito asked him what the fuck he was supposed to do about it.

Ryuzaki hummed and sidestepped the question for a while before muttering in a very roundabout way that it would not be in Raito's best interest to make an enemy of Mikami, who was currently being possessed by a Shinigami.

Duh.

Raito communicated this to Ryuzaki.

'Pity I couldn't hide somewhere,' the ex-mini-death said.

Raito rolled his eyes and informed Ryuzaki that he probably couldn't get away with spying. After all, Panda Boy's middle name was definitely not 'Stealth.'

This, of course, lead to an entirely pointless conversation about what Ryuzaki's middle name would be.

'This is not the point,' Raito had observed.

'But I think Sasha is quite a nice middle name,' Ryuzaki nibbled.

'Shut up and eat your cookie,' said Raito.

Eventually, the brunette decided that he would simply pretend that the mini-death was a nuisance to his love-life. That he had to drag him along for some reason or another. The ex-mini-death would play the part of Raito's annoying personal tagalong.

This was good.

He relayed this information to Ryuzaki and Matt, the latter of whom could not contain his snickers. Panda Man ignored him and droned his unenthusiastic agreement to Kira's strategy.

Whilst glaring into the glass doors of the apartment building and willing them to spontaneously shatter, Raito grumbled to his audience, "Let's get this over with."

"Agreed," mumbled Ryuzaki.

"Fine," said Matt.

And so they blew into the building, all three of them, not quite like a trio of musketeers. More like stooges, actually. Raito's annoying subconscious informed him of this, but he blew it off just like any other undesirable figment of his imagination. He strolled up the stairs, tugging on Ryuzaki's horribly large sleeves as he did so. Ryuzaki had flat-out refused to wear anything else. This was another grievance of Raito's.

Raito managed recently to squeeze Ryuzaki into his room. He admitted Ryuzaki into his household by undermining his father's authority and playing the sentiments of women against him. Sayu, naturally, squealed and insisted that Ryuzaki be housed in Raito's room until he managed to buy an apartment of his own.

('What's this about buying him a bed? Why waste all that money when Raito's got one already? They can _shaaarrre…_')

Sayu's crumbly, gooey, sugary lovesickness floated about the room in a communicable haze. Soon, Sachiko's natural sympathy for the unfortunate kicked in.

('It's only until he finds a home of his own. Soichiro, you don't want him to _starve_ all alone out there, do you?')

That evening, Soichiro relented and allowed the ex-mini-death to stay a while.

Soon after the family had Ryuzaki comfortably situated, they took him shopping. It was only a matter of time, after all, until they noticed that he only wore one outfit. Out of the courtesy of his heart, the ex-mini-death allowed his surrogate family to buy him some cheap clothing. When Ryuzaki didn't select a wardrobe _nearly_ big enough, Raito suggested that the mini-death could wear some of his old clothes. After all, Raito and Ryuzaki were both about the same size.

'You mean you're going to let me get into your pants, Raito-kun?' Ryuzaki had mused.

Sayu laughed so hard, she nearly exploded.

That night was the first night Raito and Ryuzaki spent in the same bed; equally human, equally aware, and equally tense. To say that the night was awkward was like saying the sun was warm. Understatement of the year. Raito didn't know whether to be worried or curious. He laid awake, muscles so tense, they ached in the morning. His eyes wandered his wall until three in the morning, unaware of what else there was to do. Raito listened for any movement from Ryuzaki. Any twitches, any sighs, any creaks in the mattress.

And yet he heard nothing.

He wondered what his panda-eyed bed buddy was thinking. Was he feeling nearly as strange as Raito was? Was he waiting for the right moment to jump the brunette's bones and fulfill Raito's end of the bargain for him?

Raito asked him what he'd been thinking about once they ate breakfast the next morning.

Bizarrely, Ryuzaki had been asleep all night.

('Well, fuck me.')

('Is that an invitation?')

('…Shoo.')

Raito waved his nostalgia away as he stood before Teru's door. After he knocked, it took only a moment for the eager mortal to answer. He swung the door open, lips wide in a half-formed greeting.

And then he noticed Ryuzaki.

"Who is this?" he asked much too politely.

"Baggage," Raito answered.

"Oh indeed? Does this baggage of yours happen to have a name?"

"Ryuga," muttered the displeased ex-mini-death, "Or Ryuga-_kun_ as you may call me."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," remarked Teru after a millennium of acidic silence.

"The pleasure is all mine," droned Ryuzaki.

Teru glanced down at the poised and casual brunette with his entourage in tow. "Certainly you could have _called_ me. I am afraid my pantry is ill-equipped to serve three people."

"I could have called you," stated Raito factually, "but I didn't."

Teru nodded his head sagely. "Well, come in anyhow. Make yourselves at home." He stood aside as Raito, Ryuzaki, and Matt all paraded into the room. The brunette could tell that his not-quite-love-interest was quite put off by having an extra passenger on his love boat. Teru sagged a little, hanging onto the side of the door with the most perplexed look on his face. Raito felt ill at ease upsetting the poor bastard like this. However, if Ryuzaki kept his mouth shut and let Raito do the talking, all would be well.

Raito should have known better.

"White," muttered Ryuzaki, "I hate white."

Oh, he did _not_. Now he was just being ridiculous.

Teru pulled Raito aside with a pleasant 'can I speak with you for a moment?'

The brunette considered saying 'no,' and then thought better of it. He allowed himself to be tugged into the kitchen, where he was cheerily and unassumingly interrogated. "Who is this?" the dark-haired man asked with a pleasant smile.

"You'll have to excuse him," Raito shrugged. "I can't exactly get rid of him. He's a mental patient. My dad pawned him off on me at the last minute and I haven't managed to find anyone who will take him off of my hands."

"A mental patient?" Teru asked incredulously.

"Yeah. Trapped in a box for the majority of his life. See the way he's always hunched over?"

Teru nodded.

"Yeah, so he's kind of strange, if you catch my meaning. Sits funny and chews on his thumb and only eats sweet things."

('Only sweet things like you, Raito.')

('Seriously, shut up.')

"Oh," Teru blinked dumbly. "Well… how long is he going to… Is he living with you?"

Raito chewed on his lip. "Uh… sort of."

"Well, how are we going to get rid of him?" Tall, Dark, and Geeky asked with a puzzled frown.

"If we just ignore him, maybe he'll go away," Raito chirped.

"I suppose," mused Teru.

And while Raito was bullshitting the hour away… "Don't be surprised if he starts talking to himself, either. He's schizophrenic."

Teru nodded slowly. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Well, this completely ruins my day."

"Sorry," said Raito more than half earnestly.

Teru eventually decided that he'd make Ryuzaki an extra bowl of instant Udon noodle soup. While Teru was at it, Raito decided to relay the ex-mini-death's predetermined personality to him. He stalked over to the recliner, which had always been Ryuzaki's favorite haunt. "You're a schizophrenic mental patient who's lived his entire life in a box," stated the brunette. Ryuzaki tilted his head at him and nibbled on his thumb. "Understood," he said.

Raito then returned to the kitchen and apologized profusely to his not-boyfriend. Teru replied curtly that it was no big deal. He could schedule a date later. Despite his words, Teru seemed much more on edge than usual. He positively _despised_ Ryuzaki's company.

…Oh.

Oh, wait.

Oh shit.

Teru did _not_ like Ryuzaki. Now, Raito considered Teru to be a rational individual, but if Ryuzaki made him too angry, he could do something drastic.

Like write his name down in a death note.

But…

All of the tension flowed out of Raito's shoulders and left him feeling wobbly and breathless. Relief knocked him over like a foaming breaker.

Teru did not know Ryuzaki's true name. Neither did Raito, for that matter. Therefore, Ryuzaki was completely immune to the death note.

For the time being.

Unless Ryuk's eyes could see…

Wordlessly, Raito stalked out of the kitchen. He located Matt, who was bemusedly doing handstands on the opposite wall in the living room. Raito could not yet trust Matt to follow his exact orders like Ryuzaki had, but he was desperate.

"Matt," Raito mumbled under his breath.

The mini-death goggled at him through his sunglasses. "Yeah," he droned.

"I need a favor."

Matt's eyes lit up and he grinned mischievously. He hopped off of the wall and landed in a crouch on the floor. "Want me to raid his panty drawer for you, chickenshit?"

"No," deadpanned Raito.

"Fine, fine," waved Matt. "Just tell me what kinda' dirt I have to dig in."

"If you go through that wall, there," Raito pointed, "you should get to Teru's bedroom."

"You _do_ want me to raid his drawers." Matt not-squealed, "Oh you little devil you."

Raito took a deep, calming breath and focused. "There should be a shinigami lurking somewhere in there."

Matt's sparkling eyes took a turn for the curious. "Shinigami? Like the ones with the fancy stationary?"

"Yes," Ryuzaki chipped in from his recliner.

"Ah," mused Matt. He pointed to the kitchen and muttered, "This dude's possessed?"

"Yes," Ryuzaki chipped in again.

"I want you to ask him if his eyes can really see names. I want you to ask if they can see anything else as well, like whether or not I'm Kira," Raito demanded.

"Uh huh," mused Matt. "I'll just report back to mister Sad Panda over there, then?"

"Yes," said Raito.

Matt stuck his hands in the pockets of his pants for a second or so. "Awright," he drawled, "I've never talked with one of those weirdoes before. This should be fun."

"Great," grumbled Raito. "Now get in there."

"Sir yes sir," grouched Matt with a floppy salute. After that, he vanished through the wall.

--

Mikami's affections only ventured as far as an arm around Raito's shoulders, a smooch, or a snuggle. His hands never ventured lower than Raito's chest and his eyes followed suit.

L was very satisfied.

He sat there in his darkened corner, scheming with a merciless, blank look on his face. Once every few minutes, Mikami would glare daggers in L's general direction. L would stare calmly through him and slowly grin in the creepiest way he thought possible.

L was not afraid of Mikami's death-notey wrath. Mikami did not possess a name to scribble in his notebook. Even if Ryuk could see his name with those bulbous eyes of his, he would not disclose it to Mikami. Though the dusty black shinigami was not on Kira's side, he made it perfectly clear that he was not on Mikami's either.

After all, it would be much more fun to watch the mortal struggle.

Wasn't that what Ryuk fell to earth for?

Fun?

Besides, even if Mikami decided to write 'Ryuga Hideki' in his notebook, the famous actor would inevitably pop into his mind. He would inadvertently kill the wrong person. Being the justice lover he was, he couldn't allow that, could he?

Unless he were like Kira, who didn't give a damn one way or the other.

L's arch-nemesis and his one and only love interest were having a pleasant conversation about something or another when Matt bounced out of the wall and made a beeline for L. "L," Matt said, looking much more serious than he usually did, "That thing scares the hell out of me, but it's so fuckin' cool."

L raised an eyebrow. "Did he tell you anything?" he asked just quietly enough.

"Well, yeah, since I'm much more interesting to talk to than you guys," Matt shrugged.

"Did he say that?" L asked dryly.

"Schizophrenic, schizophrenic," Raito laughed airily in the distance to his staring comrade.

"Yup," the brunette mini-death elaborated. "Anyway, so he and I get into this whole spiel about eyes, right? So he tells me that he can see a human's given name and lifespan, and that's all. No 'Kira' or anything like that."

Ah. Well, that was good.

"But wait, there's more," hummed Matt sagely. "He also said that, in return for half of a human's lifespan, he could _give_ that human his eyes. Which means that Handsome over there could possibly see your name. So he could write it in his little black book."

(Oh really?)

"Did he tell you?" L hinted, trying to be as ambiguous as possible.

Matt got the hint. "He wouldn't tell me whether or not your boyfriend's boyfriend had them or not. Likes to keep people guessing, y'know?"

Damn. L should have expected that. Well, this certainly made things more complicated. Maybe if Raito convinced Mikami that he would be _dreadfully _sad if L died, Mikami would reconsider.

Hmmm… perhaps L could find a loophole somewhere if he tried.

In the meantime, the ex-mini-death opted to assume that Mikami was armed and dangerous. Therefore, he took the appropriate action. The next time his arch-nemesis glanced curiously over, L managed a disgustingly sweet smile and a dainty little wave. This confused Raito, who mouthed a confused 'what?' while his not-lover's back was turned.

L continued to smile.

"Hey… by the way, L," Matt suddenly interjected.

Once Mikami muttered to himself and turned away, L grumbled, "What?"

"Why would a shinigami have two death notes?"

L quirked an eyebrow. "Spares, I suppose?"

"Yeah, well he seemed awfully proud of the one he had on him. You don't suppose he could be writing stuff down in it without anyone else's consent, do you?" Matt quizzed.

"And why would he need someone else's consent?" L mumbled in excessive silence.

"He said he wasn't going to help Mikami. That doesn't mean he's not gonna' help himself."

Interesting point.

And yet, the argument stood that if Ryuk really wanted Raito dead, the brunette would be rotting six feet underground by now. While the shinigami was not harmless, he wasn't that malicious either. "I do not think we are in any particular danger," said L pointedly.

"Oh, that's really common in schizophrenics," Raito whispered to Mikami. "They're really paranoid."

Mikami nodded.

Anyhow…

"Well, okay. I'll take your word for it," Matt grumbled.

A few more minutes passed and it was high time for Raito to leave. L was feeling increasingly uncomfortable in his enemy's household. Both Raito and L waved their awkward goodbyes. Raito leaned in for a smooch just before marching along down the hall. L and Matt followed him.

Once all three of them were safely on the sidewalk, Raito asked L, "So. Figure anything out?"

"His eyes can see names and lifespans and he can give these eyes to anyone he pleases in payment for half of this person's remaining lifespan. However, his eyes cannot see whether or not anyone is Kira," droned L.

Raito handled the information well enough. "Ah. That's fine."

L, however, knew that Raito had something else on his mind. His suspicions were confirmed when Raito suddenly asked, "He couldn't see _your_ name… could he?"

"Yes," L admitted carefully. "Though the name he would see wouldn't be _Ryuzaki_."

Raito was morbidly curious as ever. "So… if Teru had the eyes, he could basically _kill_ you. Is that what you're saying?"

"You don't want to know my real name?" L blinked astonished. Really, he had expected Raito to ask about his name. It was obvious whether or not Mikami could kill him if he were equipped with shinigami eyes (The answer to which, sadly, was 'yes').

Raito glared. "Different degrees of importance right now, Ryuzaki."

Ah. So his life was important after all. Made him feel all tingly inside.

"Well, the answer to your question is 'yes,' of course," L stated factually. "If he wanted to kill me, he certainly could."

Raito cringed.

"Oh, stop worrying," muttered L, "You'll make me sad."

"You guys are hilarious," Matt chimed in suddenly. He kept in stride with them, musing for a moment. "I've been thinking about that little proposition you guys made. I agree to tell you about Mello for such-and-such amount of time once I've played god-knows-how-many hours of video games. Sound clear?"

L raised an invisible eyebrow. "You agree to Raito-kun's terms explicitly?"

Matt searched his head awhile. "Yes."

"Well, that was easy," Raito whistled.

Matt smiled amicably. "Well, you _did_ promise me a closet and a bunch of video games. I'd have to be crazy to pass that up."

"You are crazy," L pointed out.

"Out of my _fucking_ mind," Matt agreed enthusiastically, "but not insane enough to say 'no.' So, when do I move in?"

"Well… I have to clean out my closet first. That shouldn't take long," Raito replied.

"And you have to buy me a DS," Matt demanded gravely. "Otherwise, I'm leaving."

L glanced at Raito, whose expression straddled the fence between frustration and relief. He sighed dejectedly, ran his hand through his hair, crossed his arms, and made a general scene of himself before saying "I _suppose_…"

"Score," Matt jabbed the air smugly.

Raito slunk darkly down the sidewalk like an oozing cloud of quiet desperation until he came face to face with his favorite haunt, the electronics store. L happily followed him in, genuinely curious about why Raito enjoyed the little shop so much.

It was a quaint little shop, and L got the general impression that most shops of the quaint variety had a homey, personal atmosphere. This shop in particular did not lack in warm, happy, friendliness, but it didn't overdo itself either. The air smelled very sterile and artificial. Every Plexiglas and stained-steel shelf in the store was kept meticulously spotless. The place was run almost exclusively by middle-aged men with their hair combed carefully over their bald spots.

Friendly, yet coldly businesslike.

In short, L could see why someone with such _high_ regard for small-talk would enjoy browsing its shelves.

Televisions, cameras, computers, MP3 players, and even handheld video games. L glanced at them all. Raito glared into the case displaying Nintendo merchandise. Matt poked the black one in the middle and droned "That one, that one, that one, that one, that one…" over and over and over again.

"That one," said Raito to his friendly neighborhood sales representative.

"Ah, the black one?" clarified the balding man before detailing that for only so-much-more, he could purchase a package containing two complimentary games and so on and so forth. L lost interest. He never had seen the appeal of video games. He found even his life-or-death Wii Play Tennis match a bore.

After watching Raito being bullied into buying countless useless accessories for Matt's DS, L left the store with the penniless brunette in tow. Matt fawned over Raito's heavy shopping bag and Raito ignored him. L was about to inform him about the dangers of granting a small, naïve child its every wish, when the brunette's hold around his shopping bag tightened considerably. His expression became dangerously uninvolved and his gait evened out into something much too normal to _be_ normal.

L's eyes impassively scanned the crowded street until they came to rest on something that was entirely too out of place.

Directly on the other side of the street, looking much too casual for his own good, was a man who looked disturbingly like Raye Penber.

And he was headed straight for Raito.

--

It was really no use pretending to be surprised.

Raito kept his eyes forward as the FBI agent neared his target. Ryuzaki read the brunette's actions perfectly, adopting his usual, stooped posture and empty stare.

Once Raito reached the other side of the street, he calmly continued walking until his stalker caught up. Penber, like Raito, gave no sign that he'd been caught off guard. The agent kept in stride, politely keeping outside of the brunette's personal bubble.

Politely? Coldly? Unusually frigid for a screw-up like Raye Penber. He must've improved as an agent since Raito last saw him.

He was close as ever, and yet he kept silent.

Hadn't counted on having an extra bystander, huh? Raye looked like he wanted to speak with _someone_ about _something_. Otherwise he wouldn't have dreamed of walking that close. Incidentally, Raito wanted to hear what he had to say.

All in good time, however. The brunette struck up an easy conversation with Ryuzaki, who slipped into character effortlessly and babbled back about something or another. Matt, who was much more perceptive than Raito usually gave him credit for, observed the scene quietly and never interrupted.

For two breezy blocks, the charade continued. Then, the brunette spotted a vending machine inside of an open arcade. Bashfully, he announced, "Hey, Ryuga, I'm going to go buy myself a drink really fast. You want one?"

"No, thank you," Ryuzaki declined. "I'd like to try my hand at that pinball game there, though."

Just like that, Raito dropped some change into Ryuzaki's hand and the two of them entered the arcade. The brunette broke away and headed for the vending machine while Ryuzaki meandered off toward the other end of the room. Matt glanced warily at both of them before deciding to haunt Raito. Penber followed carefully behind Raito. The brunette stopped and rifled through his pockets for spare change, just waiting for Penber to make his move.

"Raito Yagami."

Perfect.

Raito glanced carelessly behind him and quirked a knowing eyebrow, expecting to see Raye Penber's quirky blue eyes staring back at him.

Wrong.

Disturbingly wrong.

Stalker-man had covered his eyes with a pair of shiny, black shades. From this close proximity, Raito could see that his hairstyle closely resembled Raye's, but he looked a bit younger. He carried himself powerfully and discreetly, surrounding himself in an aura of authority. He was poised, quiet, calm, and deadly.

This was not Raye Penber.

Raito's look instantly dissolved into something less playful. "Yes, that's me," he answered after sizing his opponent up.

Silence. And then…

"Gevanni. CIA."

…_Oh?_

"CIA?" Raito chuckled nervously, nearly unsure of how to react. "You're joking, right?"

Okay. What on earth were the FBI _and_ the CIA doing in Japan? Did the NPA know they were here?

Gevanni, or whatever his name was, merely stared coldly through his glimmering glasses. "I need you to come with me."

Raito asked the one nagging question in his mind. "Why?"

"I need you to come with me," repeated Gevanni.

"Why?"

"If you will not cooperate, I will use force."

Him? Force? Raito would break him in half. He _swore_ he would. Just in case, though… he wanted Matt to inform Ryuzaki about this. He glanced conspiratorially at Matt, who took the hint and flew off to find his ex-mini-death friend.

Ryuzaki was smart. He'd find a way to help Raito.

…Hopefully.

Just in case, Raito stalled for time. "Listen. I don't know who the hell you _think_ you are, but I'm not going anywhere. My father is the Chief of the NPA. He'll have you arrested in the blink of an eye."

"The NPA no longer exists," deadpanned Gevanni.

_No longer… exists?_

_What?_

Raito glared at his stalkerish enemy. "What the _hell_ are you talking about?"

"The NPA has been dissolved," stated Gevanni. He would give no further information.

"You're insane," spat Raito.

Gevanni ignored him again. Instead, he murmured something into the lapels of his jacket. Raito was _really_ starting to hate this guy's attitude. He thought he was _such_ a badass. Thought he was God. Sitting there, all snooty and silent… Honestly, he couldn't have been much older than Raito was.

God spoketh. "You will allow me to escort you out of this building or you will be dragged out of it."

Never should have misjudged his enemy. Never should have assumed. Never should have wandered into the secluded corner of a crowded, loud, dark, noisy arcade.

Never should have headed for the pop machine.

Stupid pop machine.

Raito was about to make a smart comment about how someone as puny as Gevanni could hope to drag Raito _anywhere_, when what to his wondering eyes should appear, but the man who would do the dragging. A large, tall man with a buzz-cut marched quietly through the crowd. He stopped just behind Gevanni and crossed his tree-trunk arms in a foreboding manner.

God spoketh once more. "Please come quietly."

"I'm calling my dad," Raito threatened, whipping his cellular phone out.

Tree Trunk Man disarmed him almost instantly. And when Raito said 'disarmed,' he meant it in every sense, literal and ridiculous. Tree-Arms nearly tore Raito's limbs off. He was much like Mogi in the way he could move. In a second, he had Raito's arms twisted behind his back. The brunette thought he felt a little prick on his shoulder somewhere and the first thing that came to his mind was a monotonous, unexcited, 'Oh, no, you don't.'

_Here we go._

The instant the edges of his vision went blurry, Raito furiously gave up and let the grossly ridiculous bullshit of his life take over. Stubbornly, Raito growled that he didn't want this to happen. It was too _stupid_ to happen.

Seriously.

What kind of normal person went out and got himself _sedated_ by the CIA on a daily basis? The odds were preposterous! Why him? Why now? Why in the most unreasonable Hollywood fashion known to man?

Oh, Raito supposed angrily, he would probably blink his darkening eyes blearily, say something along the lines of 'I don't feel well,' and then faint in a fantastic swoon for the floor. Trees-For-Arms would nod at Gevanni, Gevanni would nod resolutely back, and they would haul Raito's slumbering body out into the Russian Mafia's company car as if nothing ever happened.

Calming drugs, shmalming drugs.

Raito was furious.

Furious and afraid. He didn't like losing control. He didn't want to be put to sleep. In fact, one of his top fears in life was being put to sleep. One second, complete awareness. The next, nothing. This fear only served as fuel for the fire of his divine rage and he found himself hating the detestable duo more and more each second.

So incensed was he, that he refused to adhere to the film industry's Surprise CIA Attack guidelines. He refused to do anything except glower at Gevanni's sunglasses. He expected to see at least a little surprise cross the CIA agent's face as Raito stubbornly clung to his consciousness.

But _noooo…_

Gevanni stood there, calmly, patiently. Waiting for his charge to pass out.

Raito managed to flip him the bird once before his vision tunneled completely and blacked out.

--

_Beep…_

_Beep…_

_Beep…_

Oh, bucket of shoes. Wouldn't someone _please_ answer the phone? It would be so kind. L swore that if _someone_ didn't answer soon, he was going to… break his arm off… or something.

He was improvising.

The second Matt told him the news, L had abandoned his pinball game. Instead, he got chummy with the pay-phone. Raito's father would know what to do. L needed to call the house. If Soichiro wasn't there, L would demand his personal cell number.

Because this was very, very important.

_Bee…_ "Yagami residence, Sayu speaking. May I ask who's calling, please?"

Oh, thank… cows, or something. L was in no mood for pointless thought. He needed talk. Now, now, now!

"This is Ryuga," said L. "May I speak with your father?"

"Ummm… he's at work right now. Sorry. Can I take a message?" Sayu bubbled happily.

"I'm afraid I must speak to him personally. Does he have a cellular phone number, perchance?"

"Um, yeah, but it's kind of reserved for emergencies," said Sayu.

"This is an emergency," said L.

"Oh… well, um, here…"

L memorized it. "Thank you, Sayu. Goodbye."

"You be good to my brother!" she squealed.

L was in no mood. So he hung up and dialed Soichiro's cell number.

_Beep…_

_Beep…_

"Come on, come on…" Matt urged under his breath. He took his glasses off of his face and gnawed on them. "It's gettn' bad, L. Some gigantic ex-marine dude just walked in, and he doesn't look friendly."

L silently willed him to shut up.

_Bee…_

"…Yagami here."

Oh, wow. And now L was out of breath. Struggling to catch up with it again, L gulped, "Yagami-san. I am sorry to bother you. This is Ryuga speaking."

"…Yes. What do you want? My cell is reserved for emergencies only."

Hmm… echoes. The call was being monitored, obviously. Oh well. The more, the merrier.

"This is definitely an emergency, Yagami-san," assured L.

Yagami began to lose his composure. "Well, what is it? Is something wrong?"

So L flat out told him. "Your son is being kidnapped by the CIA."

Astonished silence.

"…The CIA?"

"Yes."

"That's ridiculous. How do you know?"

"Well, considering he's being cornered and interrogated by two angry men and there is a strange-looking Cadillac parked outside… Do not ask me how I know. Your son is being kidnapped. Isn't that enough?"

"You… where are you?"

L named the street and the arcade. "I do not think we will be here much longer, though," he added.

"Why not?"

"Well, your son just collapsed and they're carrying him out the door-"

The phone went dead. Damn. Either Soichiro hung up or L was in _deep_ trouble.

Raito was being spirited away, bridal style, and no one in the entire arcade seemed to care. L was at a loss for action. There was absolutely _no_ way he could take either of the two agents out. Even if he did, they probably had backup waiting just around the corner. If he ran and hid, he would lose sight of Raito, but he would be able to communicate with Raito's father once he arrived. Choices, choices.

Luckily or unluckily, depending on L's state of mind, the smaller agent walked back into the arcade and made his mind up for him. "You," he said sternly, "Who are you?"

"Ryuga Hideki," stated L.

"Please come with me."

"Why?"

The agent seemed as though he'd been through this scenario before. "Please come with me," he repeated coolly.

Well, L really had no choice in the matter. He shrugged his shoulders and sighed. "Fine. But I am _not_ being put to sleep."

So, Ryuzaki was escorted to the car, being conveniently black and inconspicuous in nature. The cab of the vehicle was a matching shade of black. All of the windows had been covered in something dark. As if that were not enough, L was blindfolded as soon as he got comfortable. The large man who carried Raito off was seated at his left, so Raito must've been on his other side.

Hmmm…

L didn't really like being shoved into a dark cab. Nevertheless, the car rumbled into action and lurched forward.

And then, without being asked to do so, good ole' Matty got to work. "Okaayyy…" he began with a deep breath and a puff of air. "It's really dark in here and I have a funny feeling you want to know _exactly_ what's going on. So. Little skinny prick up here in the driver's seat is named 'Gevanni.' The big dude in back with you is 'Rester.' They're probably driving you guys to some deserted place near the pier. I don't know exactly what he's saying, but I'll tell you guys the address when we get there."

Ah, good old Matt. L felt better already.

"May I ask why we are being detained?" L made an attempt to gather more information.

"No," said the one called Rester.

Shot down.

L sighed to himself. "Well, alright. The movies certainly don't lie. You CIA people are not the most personable bunch."

"Shut up."

"Yes, yes," grouched L, "If you haven't got anything nice to say…"

Rester snorted.

L was surprised how the trip dragged on. Minutes became hours, hours became days… So he may have been exaggerating a little, but he wondered how in _hell _Raito could have slept through it. He began to wonder whether or not they were in Tokyo anymore.

Matt spoke.

"Heyyy… I can see the Tokyo Tower from here! We're going to Roppongi! Guess they aren't gonna' let you rot in a shipbuilder's warehouse after all!" Matt was silent for a while, and then he whistled appreciatively. "Daaaammmnnn… I can see why they took you here, too. There are foreigners _everywhere_. Sober foreigners and drunk foreigners. Wow. You guys aren't going to be conspicuous at all. There's probably a military establishment nearby, too, if all the flat-tops are anything to go by…"

Well, shit. So Kira was surrounded by foreigners and US military personnel. This did not make L very happy.

The car slowed down and the muted babble of cheery voices died down. The car slanted as if it were going downhill. L heard the sound of something like a garage door creaking shut. Darkly, L mused that he would be doing no clubbing with Raito that evening.

"Man, you will not _believe_ where we are, right now," chuckled Matt disbelievingly. L was in no mood for the mini-death's good humor. He was currently being rudely shoved out the door and led somewhere. A door closed, the blindfold was taken off, and L found himself to be sitting in a storage room with a small surveillance camera set in the corner of the ceiling. He glared queerly at his escorts, who were decked out in dark jumpsuits and visored riot police helmets.

Odd.

They said nothing.

They merely left him there and locked the door.

Angry and worried, L wondered what had become of his Raito. He glared at Matt for answers.

"Want me to tell you where the hell we are yet?" Matt quizzed.

'Why not?' said L's glare.

"We're in the basement of the fuckin' Ritz Carleton. Isn't that a riot? Wonder if you get room service down here…"

'Where is Raito?' glared L.

Matt quirked an eyebrow. "Want me to find out?"

--

Raito awoke… and it was bright.

Very, very bright.

He was quite uncomfortable, too. Irritably, he glanced at his surroundings and found himself to be sitting in a metal fold-up chair. What a bad taste in imagination these people had. The walls were not white, he gave the CIA credit for erasing that stereotype. The walls were actually a rather depressing shade of grey. He gave them no points for their distasteful choice of fluorescent lighting though. The white light seemed only to exaggerate the gloomy smoothness of the walls.

In front of him was an impeccably centered table, colored a starchy shade of white, and sitting patiently across its surface was Gevanni. His hands were folded primly under his chin and he stared into Raito's eyes with two impassive, dark eyes of his own.

"Raito Yagami," he stated. Then, he waited as if for Raito to confirm that he was, indeed, himself, and not some polymorphic, space-alien impersonator.

The brunette glanced warily at the shiny surface to all sides of him. It formed a reflective band across the grim, grey walls. One-way glass. Hmm… "Where the hell am I?" grumbled Raito.

"You are not at liberty to know," said Gevanni.

It was not Gevanni Raito listened to, though. It was a more frank, less guarded voice that came from behind him. "You're in the basement of the Ritz Carleton, my friend. Relax and enjoy, because this is about as close as you're going to get to the real thing."

Ah. Matt.

…Where was Ryuzaki?

"Where's Ryuga?" Raito demanded.

"Elsewhere," replied Gevanni.

"About two rooms behind you," said Matt.

Well, well. The hotshot at the other end of the table thought pretty highly of his nondescript remarks. Raito triumphed in the private corners of his mind. Gevanni had his ambiguous words, but Raito had Matt, who knew more or less everything.

Eat that, CIA.

Raito sighed to himself and leaned forward, stretching his back. Guardedly, he said, "Are you going to tell me why I'm here, or not?"

Gevanni blinked his eyes slowly, purposefully. "You have been arrested for the murder of FBI agent Raye Penber."

Wait, what? Raye Penber? He… died? Someone killed him? Raito had absolutely nothing to do with it! Unless he sleep-killed, Kira was completely innocent.

"What?" Raito growled with a quirk of the eyebrow.

"You murdered FBI agent Raye Penber. How do you plea?"

"Innocent!" Raito stammered. "How could I possibly _kill_ an FBI agent?"

Gevanni gave him an odd look. "He was part of a top secret mission involving ten other FBI agents. Of those ten, he was the only agent to come in contact with his target. He is also the only one that died."

Raito cast Gevanni an equally odd look. "How did he die?"

"Spontaneous heart failure."

_Well, fuck me seven ways to Sunday._

"You mean a heart attack?" Raito clarified.

"…Yes."

Im-fucking-possible.

Some other Kira had gotten to Penber before Raito had. An Anti-Kira.

No…

X-Kira.

That one. The one who broadcast his views so publicly over Sakura TV. That stupid little bastard. Why did he kill only Raye Penber, though? Surely, he must've known about the other ten agents? Even if he didn't, why Raye?

…He knew.

He knew who Kira was. He killed Raye Penber to lead Raito's enemies to his door! But… how? Why? X-Kira's videos suggested that he was a Kira supporter! Then… did that mean he killed Penber…

…To protect Raito?

Holy _shit_ on a _shit _sandwich.

With _shit_ on top.

And a side-order of _shit_.

Raito was in a deep pile of _shit_. He needed to dig himself out of it. Fast.

"You… how could I give a guy a heart attack?" Raito asked uselessly.

"You should know that by now."

Shit.

But Raito didn't actually kill Penber. That meant that there would always be evidence to prove it.

Raito groaned and sank in his chair for dramatic emphasis. "You guys don't… I mean, you're not… You can't be… serious."

"We are very serious."

"Seriously?" Raito grumbled just for funsies.

Gevanni was not amused.

"Look," Raito groaned, "I'm not… Kira. How the fuck could I be Kira, anyway? I mean, do I look like Kira to you?"

"We do not know what Kira looks like," stated Gevanni.

He was doing that 'God' thing again. Sitting all holier-than-thou on his little cast-iron throne.

"Well wh- Obviously he's not a normal person! What kind of normal person could just give people heart attacks like that?" Raito yelled.

"One with an extraordinary mind," quoth God. "Like yours."

"Like mine," hissed Raito. "I think you're crazy." He was beginning to feel much more threatened now. People were probably recording his every move from all sides of the glass. Matt's presence had lost its importance. Raito wanted Ryuzaki.

Stat.

"Where's Ryuga?" Raito bit, rising out of his chair and slamming his palms on the table.

"Elsewhere," spoketh God for the second time.

"Don't bullshit me," hissed Raito. "Where is he? What the fuck did you do to him?"

"I can assure you that nothing has been done to your friend," Gevanni pacified.

Incidentally, this did nothing for Raito's contained panic attack. "Where is he? Are you interrogating him too?"

"You care a lot for this friend of yours," said Gevanni.

Okay. Okay. Calm. Deep breaths. Raito Yagami was not emotional. He was poised, calm, and collected under pressure. He sought Matt for answers.

The mini-death spoke. "He's just fine. They've got him stuck in a storage room with a camera in the corner, but he's fine. Bored, I imagine, but healthy."

Okay. Good emotional boost there. Raito thanked Matt silently. And now, the brunette was able to reel his emotions back in. Slowly, he slumped back into his chair. "Y-yeah," he not-stuttered, "He's just a good friend of mine. That's all." Raito not-cursed himself and not-stared at the floor. "I… He never should have gotten mixed up in all this. This isn't his fault…"

Gevanni observed quietly.

"And whose fault is it?"

"God, I _knew_ you were going to say that." Raito growled, "I'm not Kira, okay? I'm not a goddamn mass-murderer-" God, it stung to say that- "and I haven't killed anyone! I'm just… trying to live a normal life!" The brunette rambled onward, reaching his arms into the air. "He attacked me, for fuck's sake! I thought I was going to die! _He_ attacked _me_. Don't you get it? I'm a victim too!"

Gevanni was silent.

And then, God spoketh.

"You have presented this argument before."

"What argument?"

"That you were attacked by Kira."

Hmmkay. There was absolutely _no_ way for him to know that. Then again, he claimed that the NPA had been dissolved. Maybe… Halle and Soichiro and everyone else were working with the CIA? Were A and W members of the CIA?

Highly unlikely.

They were definitely working together, though. The world was just one big rubber-band-ball of conspiracy, wasn't it?

Suddenly, Gevanni sighed softly and rose from his chair. Raito leered distrustfully and asked him, "Where are you going?"

"Raito Yagami," Gevanni addressed the brunette while suspiciously reaching behind him, "You must understand that I cannot allow you to leave. You are Kira. If you confess, you can get away with a lifetime of solitary confinement. Either confess…" Gevanni slid a shiny pistol into view, "or die."

(Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.)

Was this even legal? No, but who cared? The CIA? Certainly not. They were Americans. They didn't have to obey anyone's rules but their own!

…But he wouldn't shoot Raito, would he?

Would he?

No. No, he wouldn't. He couldn't.

"Confess now, Kira, or I will shoot you," quoth God solemnly.

"I'm not Kira!" Raito yelled and surged upward, sending his chair clattering to the floor. "Why won't anyone listen to me?"

"Confess."

"No!"

"Confess."

"I'm innocent, dammit! I swear! I swear!" Raito fell into his begging act. He sidestepped into a corner and cowered there, the line between his acting and reality steadily blurring. As much as Raito hoped he wouldn't shoot, Gevanni was a government operative, and a foreign one at that! Raito had no idea what his morals were.

But he would not snap.

He could not snap.

If he did, his victory would last all of one second. The observers behind the glass would lock him in the interrogation room until they could safely drag him out and execute him themselves. Either way, Raito would die.

But he would not let Gevanni get the best of him. He adhered to his act, groveling and begging and proclaiming his innocence.

"You leave me no choice," said Gevanni.

Well, fuck.

The agent cocked his gun and aimed.

He wasn't seriously going to-

BLAM!

And then… nothing.

…

…

…

Dead, thought Raito. Was he dead? No… he could hear himself breathing. He could feel his pulse jerking his body left and right. Raito realized that he had only closed his eyes for a brief moment in time. Cautiously, he opened them.

Gevanni stared back into Raito's eyes, looking slightly vexed and relieved all at once.

"…A blank," observed Raito.

Things happened very quickly after that. The heavy door at the far end of the small room burst open and Gevanni allowed an astonished glance to pass through his eyes. He stepped away from the door, almost submissively, and stood ramrod straight against the back wall, eyes set stonily on an invisible horizon.

Through the open door, someone walked. Slowly, casually, heels thumping demurely on the floor. A man in a tailored, pinstriped suit swaggered into the room, intense blue eyes blazing and a lazy smirk curling its way from one side of his face to the other like a snake in the sun. He fiddled daintily with the pair of designer sunglasses he'd pushed up onto his forehead.

"Stevie, Stevie, Stephen," he tutted mirthfully. "Shooting people again. What _am _I going to do with you?"

--

L had been sitting there, holding a rather one-sided conversation with the camera in his room, when something slightly less boring happened. He'd begun to feel a bit uneasy being separated from Kira. He knew Raito would be fine on his own, of course. After all, L could no longer help him and Matt had set out to find him. But…

Anyway, so there he was, discussing firearm engraving more or less to himself, when someone knocked first, then shoved the door aside. L glanced over, very surprised.

Everything about Halle Lidner was unusually bright in that dark room. She waltzed in, straight, platinum blonde hair swooshing this way and that as she walked. Her lips were a dazzlingly bright shade of red, and her eyes were… yellow? Odd. A very bright version of Raito's richer eyes, he supposed.

Well.

Raito really must've been gay after all if he resisted _that_ for the longest time.

She walked only a short way into the small room before she asked, "Ryuga Hideki-kun?"

"Yes," L replied.

"Would you follow me, please?"

L did not understand why Lidner was here. Perhaps she had some business with the CIA? Was she affiliated with the organization? "Perhaps," he answered skeptically. "And where would I be following you to?"

Lidner sighed. "I'm very sorry this happened to you. There has been a misunderstanding…"

"Well, of course there has!" scoffed L. "You CIA folk really _don't_ give much of a reason for your actions, do you?"

"I'm not with the CIA. I'm… I'm here to help. Chief Yagami wanted me to accompany him here. I'm busting you out."

L could have made many crude puns with that last statement… Instead, he replied, "Oh good. It was getting awfully lonely in here without Raito-kun. He is such good company. You wouldn't happen to know where he is, would you?"

Halle sighed crossly and glared into the hallway. "Gevanni is probably interrogating him…"

"Well then we simply _cannot_ waste time making pointless small-talk," harped L as he got to his feet and, without much ado at all, bumbled out the door. He was met by Soichiro's afroed cohort. Halle caught up to the both of them and hurriedly guided them through the maze of basement halls.

Not much later, the trio happened upon the rest of Yagami's expedition. The two agents who dragged Raito and L to this decrepit dump sulked in the most dignified manner possible in one corner of the room. A woman with silky blonde hair and stylish sunglasses leaned casually alongside them and examined her nails as if nothing in the room interested her at all. A tall, smiling, blonde man in a suit discussed something with her, waving meaningful circles in the air with his hands. Soichiro's remaining agents arranged themselves randomly across the room and the Big Boss himself was softly interviewing his son.

Upon the trio's entrance, Raito looked up from the cement he'd been previously staring at and his eyes met L's. Relief sparkled there for a moment and a small smile crossed his lips.

Albeit, a Raito smile.

Meaning it was a calmer variety of smirk. The ex-mini-death welcomed Raito's grin. Well, at least they hadn't beaten him up or something. That would have been terribly tragic. His face wouldn't have been nearly as pretty to look at…

"Ryuga," Raito sighed. "Where were you?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," L muttered and crossed his arms irately across his chest.

"I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding," the wavy-haired, blonde man addressed the room. "Terribly sorry to have inconvenienced you all."

"Hm," snorted the blonde woman with the unreadable sunglasses.

"Just _what_ sort of misunderstanding are we talking about, here?" Raito muttered toward the blonde duo.

"My cohort here made the mistake of assuming, based on minimal evidence, that you were Kira," explained the man with a placating gesture of the hand.

Ah. Minimal evidence, but still evidence. Hmm…

Raito slouched sourly and glared. "What evidence?"

"First of all," interjected the blonde woman, "It was no mistake. This was a test." She pushed herself gracefully away from the wall and made a slow, deliberate round about the room with her fingers raised thoughtfully to the side of her face. "I was fairly sure that you were Kira, Raito Yagami, and so I sent my two best agents to apprehend you and bring you here. I was interested in forcing you to reveal yourself when your life was in danger, but…" She stopped dead center on the floor and glared through her glasses at Raito. "It seems I have failed."

"So then… I passed your test?" asked Raito uncertainly, eyes wandering from the blonde lady to the relaxed man with the fox-like grin.

"I didn't say that," the woman remarked frigidly. "I merely said that I had failed. You may be Kira, but I haven't succeeded in proving it yet."

Raito closed his eyes and let his shoulders droop. "So… The NPA thinks I'm Kira… The CIA thinks I'm Kira… Does _everyone_ think I'm Kira, or what?"

"I have _my_ suspicions," stated the woman.

"I had mine once," shrugged the blonde man innocently, "but I have… delayed my investigation, as it were, due to your lack of suspicious activity."

Lack of suspicious activity. Huh.

"So it was _you_ who put the cameras in my room," accused Raito acidly. So he and L both held the same wariness.

"Yes. I suppose it was!" the blonde man laughed it off. "No hard feelings, right? Being the Chief's son, you must understand the importance of investigation, no matter how invasive it may be. In any case, I apologize for my intrusion. Please accept my deepest of sympathies, and I hope you will forgive me."

Certainly had a way with words, didn't he?

Wait… A-ha! L knew this game!

Good cop, bad cop!

"Hm," the blonde woman huffed again. "It was because of your lack of evidence that I decided to try my hand at your 'investigation.'"

"Well, you certainly weren't very nice about it," the blonde man chided like a father to a disobedient daughter.

"Hm. You should know by now that I never do anything halfway," she retorted. "I had hoped that you would kill Gevanni once he threatened you with that gun-"

"Wait!" Raito interrupted in a fiery burst, "You wanted him to _die_? You were willing to _kill_ your own agent to prove that I was Kira?"

"He was well aware of the dangers of his mission before he accepted it," remarked the Ice Queen. "He understood that by putting his own life on the line, he was saving countless others. I call that valor."

"I call it stupidity!" raged Raito.

Gevanni waited quietly against the wall, staring more or less into nothingness, and calmly allowed the conversation to pass straight through his ears.

"Now, now," pacified the suited man, "Raito's life was in serious danger and Gevanni did not die. Are you satisfied?"

"No."

"Good girl, good girl," the man patted his dissatisfied associate on the shoulder as if nothing had happened. He then glanced kindly over at L and smiled, "I suppose this is all terrible news for you, Ryuga-kun, and on such short notice."

"Actually Raito-kun informed me that the NPA suspected him of being Kira. I am not surprised," replied L.

"Not surprised by the drastic steps taken to prove his guilt?" asked the man.

"I am only surprised that the CIA is in Japan and they would have the nerve to kidnap two people in broad daylight, from a crowded arcade, no less."

"I see, I see," hummed the man. His cheery, intelligent smile broadened a little as he addressed Raito. "Now then, Yagami-kun. I cannot assure you that you've been cleared of suspicion. I can, however, give you the opportunity to clear your name."

Raito narrowed his eyes imperceptibly to anyone but L. The brunette calculated his options and the two strange people before him for a split second before sighing dejectedly for the umpteenth time that evening. "I… I'll do anything to prove to you guys that I'm not Kira. Just tell me what to do and I'll catch him for you!"

The blonde man smiled. "Very well, then. Since we're business partners now, I suppose introductions are in order."

Raito, eager as always to keep allies from becoming enemies, stuck out his hand and said, "Raito Yagami, and despite the circumstances, pleased to meet you."

"Likewise," rumbled the man as he shook Raito's hand firmly. "Raito Yagami, I am Aiber, and this is Wedy."

--

Me: Bwahahaha! I just _love_ turning minor characters into major ones. Lets _me_ invent their personalities.

Chibi Raito: OCs without the annoyingness.

Me: Nevertheless, I tried to stick to their original personalities, scarcely mentioned though they may be. I hope I did a good job, yes?

Chibi L: How's our writing? Call 1-800-LOL-CATS.

Chibi Matt: I can has cheezburger? :3

Chibi Misa: Swirl thought that this chapter could use a little plotty-plot-plot action to go with all the fluff. Has she done well? Let her know! Review, review, review!


	19. Suspicious

DS

**DS**

**Disclaimer: **No copyrights were harmed in the making of this fanfic.

Chibi Raito: Forgive our rude lateness. Swirl was being a zombie fanatic all month.

Me: I have recently discovered the magic of undead, rotting flesh. After a night of zombie films with my lovely assistant, the Muse of EZ-Cheez, I started on a possible fanfic rampage. I wrote six twenty-page long chapters in a week and a half.

Chibi L: Which is pretty depressing, considering the lack of attention one chapter a month gets.

Me: Shut up. I was excited. D: Plus, I got a new tablet as an early birthday present, so I'm entitled to waste some time. Nyeh.

Chibi Misa: Regardless of how much all of you should be _hating_ us by now, here we are! Read, review, and relax.

**D S 19**

Raito was happy.

Raito was _very _happy.

Why was Raito happy?

He was going to be on location with his two worst enemies in about five minutes, learning everything about them. All of their tricks, quirks, habits…

Everything.

He'd discover what made them tick, and what would make them stop ticking forever.

Raito was on the road to invincibility, but a treacherous road it was. He would have to be on his best behavior. He could give neither A nor W _any_ reason to believe that he was Kira. He would work on their case with them as an enthusiastic ally.

Raito exited the subway and headed for the largest, gaudiest skyscraper he saw. When Aiber said 'You'll know it when you see it,' Raito knew exactly what he was looking for.

_World-renowned detectives and their penthouse-suites-slash-secret-headquarters…_

It wasn't the most creative secret base in the world, and yet it was. Raito never would have pinned A and W as obvious people. He assumed that the world's prime detectives would prefer an underground, nuke-proof haunt from which to rid the world of Kira. Then again, he never expected A and W to ask a suspect to go Kira-hunting with them, either…

Strange, strange people.

"Hmm… quaint little place, isn't it?" hummed Ryuzaki as he stared upward into the mirror-like wall of windows.

"Kinda' makes me want to find the central support beam and blow it to smithereens. You know, just to watch it fall over in sparkly slow-mo," said Matt.

Ah, yes.

The peanut gallery.

Naturally, Raito had to bring them along. Raito thought at first that he would need to leave his ex-mini-death pal at home, but Aiber surprised him by inviting Ryuzaki to their little tea-party as well. The damage had been done, quoth the blonde man, and so there was no hiding his identity from 'Ryuga Hideki.' The best course of action was to involve him in the Kira case.

_Really, now?_

Raito knew that Aiber and Wedy had ulterior motives, and yet he knew not what those motives were.

Perhaps they hoped to disprove the existence of a 'Ryuga Hideki' in To-Oh University.

This was a problem.

Raito initially planned to hack into the school's database and add Ryuzaki to the roster. None of the teachers knew him, though. If A and W ever conducted a dainty, discreet, 'Is Ryuga Hideki a good student' survey, each of the professors would give them odd looks.

Raito informed Ryuzaki of this.

Naturally, Ryuzaki was very cool about it. He had a plan, though he would not disclose to Raito the details of this plan, and he was absolutely sure it would work.

Raito trusted him, perhaps foolishly.

He had a funny feeling that Ryuzaki's lack of records, address, and legal citizenship would become the topic of the day, but Ryuzaki would handle it. If he didn't, there was no blood on Raito's hands. Raito didn't know anything about Ryuzaki's lack of credentials.

He was an innocent bystander.

On the other hand, if A and W decided that Ryuzaki was dangerous…

…They could have him arrested.

Deported.

Raito _sincerely_ hoped that this was not the case.

If A and W decided to use Ryuzaki's unknown past against him, Raito would defend him. Besides, the ex-mini-death had done nothing wrong. If he'd been to prison, there would be a record of it. For all A and W knew, Ryuzaki was a passive, peaceful person.

But Raito would not allow the possibility to spoil his mood.

He marched confidently into the building, Ryuzaki at his side and Matt on his tail. He rode the elevator as high as it would go and stepped out onto a pristine marble floor. In front of him were a small foyer and a frighteningly ominous door.

"Great," whistled Matt. "Steel door, metal detector, dim lights… All they need is a welcome mat."

Raito paid no attention. Instead, he focused on the camera lens swiveling around to face him.

"Yagami-kun, Ryuga-kun, welcome," greeted a squeaky, scratchy, mechanically remixed voice.

Raito inclined his head in acknowledgement. "What do we do to get in?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to send your jacket through the metal detector along with your shoes, any electronics, belts, et cetera."

Raito smiled disarmingly. "It's like airport security all over again."

"Yes," the mechanical voice chuckled. "You must understand, we are running an immensely important operation. Security is our top priority."

"I understand," Raito sighed. He slipped his jacket off and set his cell phone, his belt, his watch, and his shoes on the conveyer belt. Ryuzaki followed suit. The metal door slid open with a pleasant 'ding,' revealing a small room that ended in another heavy door.

"Please step through," said the voice.

Raito complied. When it was Ryuzaki's turn, he yawned and walked into the little room with Raito.

Matt scouted the room behind the second door. "Well, they've got to be paying _heavenly_ power bills. They've got televisions and computers and office-chairs coming out the wazoo. It doesn't look like you guys have anything to be scared of, though. No guns, interrogation rooms, or anything like that. At least, none that I can see."

Ah, Raito was starting to like Matt more and more.

The first door closed and the second door opened. Matt certainly hadn't been lying about the electronics. The wall was covered in glowing screens, some tuned to news stations, others surfing the internet. Matsuda swiveled around in a shiny office chair and waved with an idiotic smile on his face.

Aiber appeared in front of the room's electric halo. He smiled apologetically and extended a hand to Raito as he waltzed into the room. "I apologize for any inconvenience our gratuitous security measures have caused you." He shook Raito's hand firmly before repeating the action with Ryuzaki.

"It's not a problem," dismissed Raito like the politician he was. "On the contrary, I should be thanking you for allowing Ryuga and me into your investigation."

"Yes, yes," chuckled the ever-diplomatic Aiber. "Your father has only good things to say about you, Yagami-kun. As for you, Ryuga-kun, I expect great things from Yagami-kun's fellow classmate. You must be very intelligent."

"Perhaps," said Ryuzaki.

The unnecessary greetings continued for another minute or so before Aiber cut to the chase. He led Raito and Ryuzaki aside with a pleasant, "Now, then. I suppose you two are wondering what sort of devious project I have in mind for you."

Raito chuckled, making light of the situation. "Oh, it can't be that bad."

Ryuzaki raised a disinterested eyebrow. "You're not asking us to kill Peter Parker, are you?"

Aiber barked a loud, genuine laugh. "Ryuga-kun, I envy your sense of humor. No, I'm not asking you to kill Peter Parker. Just… impersonate him for a while."

Now he had Raito's undivided attention. "You want us… to act like Kira?"

"In a way," Aiber nodded. "I need you two to compose a counter-video to the most recent Kira's public tirade."

_Most recent Kira?_

"You mean there's more than one?" Raito asked incredulously. Aiber and Wedy were very observant. They must've noticed Kira's sudden change in behavior.

"Of course," replied Aiber as if the second Kira's existence was common knowledge. "Surely you must've noticed. This Kira is much more brash and reckless than the original."

Raito's pride swelled a little.

"No, I noticed, but I didn't think it would be possible," Raito hummed, raising his hand to his chin and squinting in a convincing 'deep thought' impression.

"Yes," mused Ryuzaki, "It does seem awfully strange that a justice-loving creature such as Kira would stoop to murder innocent people."

A cold draft rolled through the room. Aiber's eyes narrowed slightly. Suddenly, his smile seemed much more out of place than before.

"Justice loving?" he asked in his usual, cheerful voice.

"Of course," replied Ryuzaki. "He kills only criminals, does he not?"

"This is true," admitted Aiber. "That is one of the reasons Wedy and I believe that there are two of them. Before this new Kira's public debut, only criminals died. Recently, Kira has murdered one of our FBI agents, Raye Penber."

Gevanni said something about Raye Penber's death. So X-Kira had gotten to him first, eh? Raito wondered why X-Kira would murder Raye in such an obvious way. Either he was stupid, or he was deliberately trying to frame Raito.

Aiber continued, raising an interested eyebrow at Kira. "You met Penber once, didn't you?"

"Yes," Raito nodded. He wasn't going to lie.

"Did you know that he was following you?"

"No," Raito denied. "After that bus jacking incident, he just said he didn't want anyone else to know he was there. I never told anyone."

"He reported that there was another man with you. Who was he?"

Oh, yeah. Teru was there, too.

…Oh.

Oh, _YES_!

This was _perfect_! Teru Mikami was Raito's boyfriend. Teru was also an Anti-Kira. Teru had a death note hidden somewhere in his room.

Evidence.

Irrefutable evidence.

Raito conjured his alibi. Firstly, his boyfriend was _terribly_ possessive. Secondly, Teru had a death note, which allowed him to give people heart attacks. Thirdly, he suspected that Penber had been chasing him. Therefore, he used his death note to kill Raye Penber, saving himself and his dearest beloved from personal harm. He wanted to keep himself from suspicion, so he allowed a gratuitous amount of time to pass before finishing the job.

_Bohahahaha!_ said Raito's mind.

"Yes," Raito responded thoughtfully to Aiber's inquiry. "He was…" and then, Raito cast a sideward glance into the rest of the investigation headquarters. "He was my boyfriend."

"Hmm… yes. Your father told me as much," replied Aiber.

"Well then, why did you ask?" asked the brunette with a twitching smile.

"Oh, just wondering whether you'd tell the truth or not."

"A test."

"Just a little one. _Little_ itty-bitty test," grinned Aiber. When Raito's not-glare refused to dissipate, the blonde man threw his hands up in the air and wiggled his fingers in an impression of falling confetti. "You passed!"

Raito snorted and shook his head. He was surrounded by clowns. Much more of this and he was going to grow a red nose and a rainbow afro.

"I hope you'll forgive me for doubting your honesty," Aiber's grin shortened to an apologetic smile. "You see, it isn't easy to gain my trust."

"I never would have guessed," remarked Raito, half-earnestly.

"Yes," mused Aiber, "and it is even more difficult to gain Wedy's trust. As you know, she's very suspicious of you, Raito."

"How about me?" Ryuzaki asked childishly with a thumb in his teeth.

"You, too."

"How depressing," sighed the ex-mini-death.

"Especially since you don't exist," continued Aiber.

Oh boy.

Here we go. The credential tirade that Raito expected was finally bubbling to the surface. Raito had nothing to say about Ryuzaki, however. He expected the ex-mini-death to live up to his promise. Instead of making any remarks on the matter, Raito simply turned around and gave Ryuzaki his best 'WHAT?' stare.

"Ah, yes," Ryuzaki replied calmly. "I expected you to find out sooner or later."

"Yagami-kun's father told me all about you. You say you are enrolled in Yagami-kun's university?"

"No," replied Ryuzaki with his classic, subdued, uncaring face. "I merely said I had a few classes with him. One does not need to enroll in a university to sneak onto the campus and climb through an open window, you know."

Aiber and Raito both quirked eyebrows at him.

Hm. He wasn't admitting his lies, just informing Aiber that he hadn't told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Interesting strategy. A and W would give him less credibility, but he avoided the sharp punishment that came with deceit. Perhaps Aiber would recognize Ryuzaki as a clever ally.

"What about your meeting with the old professor?"

"If Yagami-san retold my story correctly, you would have noticed that he _offered_ to pay my college tuition. You must also notice that he was retired, and therefore no longer affiliated with his institution. I simply refused his offer, which had a low chance of success. I told Raito-kun's father that I attended the college for a while, not that I was enrolled there."

Ryuzaki's defense was perfect.

Raito was impressed.

"And no one ever noticed that you were sneaking into Yagami-kun's classes?" Aiber inquired with a darkly thoughtful look in his eyes.

"Of course not. I have a knack for sneaking around. I simply snuck in if I could, while the professor was occupied, and hid myself beneath Raito-kun's table. He always sits in a corner, so it's quite easy."

"And when class was over?"

"The students all stood up and chattered amongst themselves," shrugged Ryuzaki, "It's terribly easy to sneak out behind a wall of talkative people, you know."

"Yagami-kun, is this true?" Aiber asked with a quirked eyebrow and an impressed smile.

"Yes, actually," Raito admitted with a not-bashful inclination of the head. "But… what did you mean when you said he didn't exist?"

"Just that," remarked Aiber. "According to both Liverpool and the metropolis of Tokyo, no one matching his description exists." He turned slyly to Ryuzaki. "Hideki Ryuga isn't your real name, is it?"

"As far as I'm concerned, it is," huffed Ryuzaki.

Aiber crossed his arms across his chest. "Explain."

"My parents never named me. Unless you count obscenities as names… In any case, I was born at home, I was hideous, and therefore my existence was never reported, illegal though that may be."

"Your mother and father had names, didn't they?"

"Marie and Francis Davenport," Ryuzaki replied effortlessly.

Raito wondered if such people existed, let alone owned a candy shop, both had blue eyes, and lived in Liverpool. Nevertheless, Ryuzaki was a thorough person. He and Matt both probably scoured the internet for information.

"Do you speak English?" grilled Aiber.

"Of course I do," answered the ex-mini-death in faultless English. His accent was even better than Raito's. He had thousands of years to perfect it, after all. Mumble, grumble…

Aiber nodded appraisingly. His eyes gained some of their humorous sparkle and he ran the sides of his fingers across the stubble on his chin. "You're very convincing, Mr. Davenport," he hummed in equally perfect English.

"Ah, but you are not convinced," observed Ryuzaki smartly. "It is difficult to gain your trust, remember?"

"You're quite right," admitted Aiber, slipping back into Japanese. "Does that offend you?"

"Oh no," dismissed Ryuzaki with a careless wave of the hand. "In fact, you have every reason to be suspicious. I am quite a strange person, after all."

Aiber's crooked smile broadened further and an appreciative gleam flickered in his eyes. "You're a very no-nonsense person, aren't you?"

"Yes," Ryuzaki replied.

"I have a feeling you'll get along with Wedy. Swimmingly," Aiber added.

"Speaking of whom," Raito interrupted, "where is she?"

"In the surveillance room, just beyond that hallway, there," Aiber pointed out, gesturing beyond the glowing screens. "Your father is also there, Yagami-kun."

Raito nodded in acknowledgement.

Ryuzaki took the reigns of the conversation once more. "Just what is it that you want Raito-kun and I to help you with?"

"I'm glad you asked." Aiber gestured to the room with one arm and flashed his ever-present smile. "Wedy and I will have to call a meeting."

--

Clearly, the whole thing was just a ploy to prove Raito's guilt. A and W wanted Kira and L to compose a counter-video to X-Kira's presentation. They wanted to lure X-Kira into a trap. While Raito and L brainstormed, the two detectives would undoubtedly be watching their actions like a pair of vultures.

Now, Raito was very intelligent, but L sincerely hoped his ego wouldn't make him too conspicuous. He didn't want Raito's video to be all sunshine, rainbows, and justice. He trusted the brunette to keep his pride in check, though.

"We want you two to tell the second Kira that you, the original Kira, are interested. You must lure him out into the open. I'm counting on you two to hook him," Aiber announced resolutely.

"And do it in a way that ensures public safety," Wedy sighed as if the meeting inconvenienced her somehow. "The last thing we need is a civilian casualty."

"Hmm…" mused L with a thumb to his lips. "As long as the equipment is provided for us, I agree to help you."

Aiber nodded appreciatively at him. Wedy arched an eyebrow and glared at Raito through her sunglasses.

"How about you, Kira?"

Raito gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. He crossed his arms across his chest, leaned back in his chair, and turned his head dismissively to the side as if he hadn't heard Wedy at all.

"Well?" Wedy pressed icily.

"Raito-kun, will you assist me?" L asked, knowing very well why Raito was throwing a Kira-tantrum.

"Of course," Raito smiled a smile that could melt steel.

_Of course_.

Raito refused to answer to 'Kira.' Well, L supposed it was more productive and creative than constantly insisting 'I'm not Kira.' In any case, Soichiro's gaggle of giggling goons, the silent CIA (who had morphed into the room sometime between five and seven minutes ago), and the detectives themselves got the drift. Wedy hummed thoughtfully to herself.

"Get to work, then."

Minutes later, Raito and L were composing monologues together beneath the watchful eyes of _absolutely everyone_. They had the CIA flanking them on one side and Halle and the Halle-ettes on the other. A and W had left the room, but they were undoubtedly observing the two geniuses from elsewhere with their damned audiovisual technosorcery.

Raito brainstormed about Kira's behavior, asking L questions on occasion. To their massive audience, it would appear that L was the most knowledgeable on the subject.

But Raito was in control.

He knew every answer to his inquiries. He was dancing around before A and W's cameras, giving them a good show. L followed along, of course, in the interest of feigning a good conversation.

"I personally believe that we should scold the second Kira for his actions. It would be befitting of a justice-fanatic to despise the deaths of innocent people," supplied L.

"That sounds about right, but I don't want to make him seem too goody-goody or too godly, even," grumbled Raito.

_Oh yes I do_, purred the gleam in the brunette's eye.

L murmured sagely, "Ah, but the world thinks of him as godly, and Kira has done nothing to change that."

"Kira thinks he's godly," mused Raito, "so if we're supposed to impersonate Kira, we have to put ourselves in his shoes…" He tapped his fingers against his chin and misted his eyes over in faux concentration. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. "We should imitate the second Kira's video, but in a much higher quality. That way, the second Kira can see the contrast and he has something to relate to."

And then, L noticed that Raito had killed someone. He snapped the fingers on his right hand as he 'got his idea.' He was probably trying to establish his finger-snapping as a habit…

Interesting.

L wondered who he killed, though.

In any case, L and Raito discussed the composition of the video, brainstorming about everything from the color in the background to the possibility of animated sparkles.

('Ryuga, that's preposterous.')

('I think it would be pretty.')

The dynamic duo composed a monologue and had Aiber record it into the mixer before animating their lovely, sparkly (Raito gave in, eventually), golden 'KIRA' video. L was personally satisfied with his work. By the end of the day, L was on the verge of spontaneous unconsciousness.

In other words, he was about to pass out.

Aiber thanked the two of them for their assistance before giving them the 'nothing leaves this room' talk. Raito and L both nodded tiredly and agreed to the investigation's strict confidentiality. Soichiro offered them a ride home, but Raito was the first to decline, assuring his father that he could make it home by himself.

As L was leaning against the side of the elevator, Matt popped out of the wall.

"Howdy."

Raito raised an eyebrow at him.

The elevator was probably bugged, so neither the brunette nor L said anything to the expectant mini-death. L suspected that Matt had been doing reconnaissance work around the headquarters. Once they were out onto the street, Matt made himself known again.

"Hey! We're out of sight again. It's okay to talk to me."

Raito said nothing. Instead, he addressed L. His eyebrows rose skeptically and his eyes gleamed in a warning matter. L caught his drift.

_Don't say anything stupid._

"So, what do you think of Aiber?" the brunette asked, innocently enough.

Ah. He suspected that the items they sent through the metal detector had been bugged. As L shrugged and sighed, "He is quite the interesting character," Raito discreetly swiped his hand across his neck and mouthed 'bugs' to Matt.

"Wha- Oh. Ohhhh. Okay. Just say 'I wish I had a piece of cake,' when you want to hear me talk. I'll just tell you about the stuff I found," Matt grumbled.

"And Wedy?" asked Raito, not skipping a beat.

"Oh, she'll come around. No one can resist your charm, Raito-kun," sighed L.

"No, I'm worried about _you_. I just… I _hate _it when she calls me 'Kira.' I just hope she doesn't do the same to you. None of this is your fault, Ryuga. I'm sorry for getting you caught up in all this…"

"Nonsense! None of this is your fault, either, Raito-kun. You are simply a suspect. If anyone is at fault, it is the detectives. They can't prove the innocent guilty, you know."

"Yeah, I guess you're right…" Raito sighed dejectedly.

L was about to make a useful remark about cake when Raito continued their charade.

"When Aiber mentioned your lack of citizenship, I was… actually scared that he'd deport you."

The tone of Raito's voice wasn't right. L noticed the slight change and blinked over at the brunette. Raito was gazing into his eyes with an unusual intensity. He pressed his lips into a tight, flat frown.

…So Raito was truly worried about him. An inappropriate surge of happiness swelled in L's heart. Raito was honestly afraid of losing him.

"Oh, Raito-kun," L chuckled, "You needn't worry about me. If they do deport me, I will send you letters and e-mails by the thousands. I'll even kidnap you if you wish."

Raito laughed heartily and glared at him simultaneously.

_Not in front of the bugs._

L winked at him.

Before Raito could make an ambiguous complaint, L changed the subject. "On a lighter note, I wish I had a piece of cake."

Matt sprang into action.

"Okay, so there's a special surveillance room in the investigation headquarters, other than the one you guys were debating in. Raito's dad, that Aiber guy, and 'Wendy without the N' were all packed in there, watching you guys argue. Daddy wasn't too happy with A and W for suspecting you both, Raito especially, so he's working pretty hard to clear your name. In any case, those two detective bozos are planning to tell you all about that room tomorrow, just to see how you'll react."

Well, well.

Still, that was not a lot of information for a mini-death who had been hovering around an investigation headquarters for the duration of the day. At the very least, he could've gone snooping through some case files. L wanted to ask him if he did anything other than sit around and watch Aiber and Wedy bicker all day.

Now was not the time, however.

Speaking of now, Raito had been filling in the silence with scathing remarks about L's cake addiction. L made a show of rolling his eyes and complaining about Raito's lack of compassion.

Suddenly, a cell phone rang.

Raito narrowed his eyes skeptically and reached into his pocket. He flipped the screen up and glared. Visually, Raito sulked.

Audibly, Raito sparkled.

"Pardon me for a second. Teru's calling me."

"There is nothing like love to ruin a perfectly good argument," growled L.

Raito half-smiled at him. L recognized this as an apologetic gesture.

_Please forgive me, but I have to cheat on you for a second. I hope you'll understand._

L rolled his eyes dismissively and allowed his puckish boyfriend to answer a call from another boyfriend. He could've been in a soap opera. Really.

"Teru, how are you?" Raito purred into the phone with enough passionate sweetness to give the nearest bystander a sugar-high. A pause. "Oh, that's good." Pause. "Me? Well, I've been really busy today, sorry. I had to turn my phone off, so that's why I missed your calls." Pause. "How many?" Sigh. "I'm sorry. When I turned my phone on, I didn't notice all the messages. I'm just tired, I guess. Why would you leave that many, anyway?"

L sighed and turned to Matt for entertainment. The brunette mini-death was currently hovering behind Raito, mimicking everything he did. L had to hold his breath to keep from laughing.

"I'm sorry," Raito sighed animatedly and ran a hand through his hair. "Like I said, I was busy. I… might be busy for a while. Do you think you can entertain yourself without me?" Pause. A laugh. "Will it really be that difficult? I think I'm a boring person." Pause. "You're lying." Another pause, longer than the others. Raito glanced at L. "Tonight?" he asked skeptically, his honey-brown eyes never leaving L's. "Isn't it late?" Pause. "Well, I'm hanging out with Ryuga right now." Pause. Raito flashed the phone an icy smile. "It's too late at night. My dad won't let me."

Oh my. L smelled an argument.

A delicious, spicy, juicy argument.

Yes.

In spite of the fire growing in his eyes, Raito kept his voice calm and level. "I'm tired, Teru. I've had a long day." A long pause. "Your house? Teru, I'm sorry, but I don't want to run away from home tonight. I just want to go home and sleep, okay?" A longer pause and a fantastic roll of the eyes. "No. It's not you. I'll call you tomorrow morning if I'm not busy. If I am, I'll call you after I'm _done_ being busy." Pause. "It's a family matter. Something came up." Pause. Raito blew a puff of air at his bangs and glared pointedly at L. "My dad had a heart attack, okay?" he deadpanned.

L and Matt both raised their eyebrows.

"He's fine," Raito grumbled. "Yeah." Pause. "I'll talk to you later. Bye." Raito snapped the phone shut and stuck it in his coat pocket.

"You lied," L observed.

Raito sighed and closed his eyes, "It worked. He left me alone."

"Are you angry?" L asked with a devious gleam in his eye.

"No," Raito replied with an equally conspiratorial sparkle.

"Pity," sighed L. "I _do _love an argument."

Raito rolled his eyes.

The subway ride was uneventful, as L didn't have many conversations to start with A and W as an audience. Once Raito got home, he waved tiredly at his mother and retired to his room. Naturally, L followed.

Raito took his jacket off and started swearing at it.

Apparently, now was a ripe time to discover the bugs A and W had placed on it. L responded enthusiastically to Raito's theatrical rage, inspecting his belt and his shoes for suspicious electronic devices. There weren't any on either his belt or his shoes.

So A and W bugged Raito only.

Hmmm.

Well, L wasn't particularly alarmed. After all, there were no conveniently bug-able areas on his scanned accessories. He would've found a bug on his belt as soon as he put it on, and a bug on his shoe would've transmitted nothing but 'tap, tap, tap.' A and W probably would have surrounded him with bugs if he had a jacket like Raito's.

"So you didn't get bugged, huh?" Raito grumbled.

"No," L confirmed.

"They're not giving up, are they?" Raito growled like the dark, dramatic Kira he was.

"They caught you talking to your boyfriend, Raito-kun," L nibbled on his thumb. "Quite embarrassing, if I do say so myself."

Raito made a show of sighing and tapping his fingers against his bedspread. "It's… nothing Aiber doesn't already know. It's fine."

And then, Matt got a wacky idea.

"Why don't you guys talk to 'em?" he grinned maniacally and rung his hands like a Disney villain.

Raito raised a silent eyebrow at him.

"Do it," commanded Matt, "I dare you."

Well, L had nothing else to do and speaking with A and W would do him no harm. After all, it was a perfectly adolescent thing to do, was it not? Quite fitting for a couple of college students.

L snatched Raito's jacket. "Hello, Yagami-san, Aiber-san, Wedy-dono. I do enjoy speaking with you, but on a more… conventional basis. Raito-kun and I enjoy a good, intellectual conversation. Perhaps you could have supplied his jacket with a cellular phone instead? In any case, Raito-kun and I wish you all the fondest of good nights. We accept your sincere apologies as well. You are all forgiven."

Matt snickered uncontrollably and Raito gave L the 'you overdramatic bastard' stare. To enforce his point, Raito growled, "Ryuga, you're overdoing it."

"Please wish our dear friends a good night, Raito-kun," L suggested diplomatically.

Raito snorted at him and shook his head. Nevertheless, he gave in. "Goodnight, I guess."

"Ah, yes. I'm afraid you won't be getting any more emotion than that. I am terribly sorry. I eagerly await your forgiveness for Raito-kun's attitude the next time we meet. I also wish to be forgiven for destroying your hardware. You must understand. Goodbye."

With that, L squashed the bug underfoot with a sickening crunch and tossed it out the window.

Raito sat peculiarly on the bed and blinked rapidly at L with his arms crossed across his chest.

"Overkill."

L nodded sagely. "Do you have any more bugs on you? I dislike eavesdropping."

"No more bugs," growled Raito.

L smiled.

--

Matt retired to the closet, where he proceeded to kill things repeatedly on his PSP. Every once in a while, he would alert the two humans on the bed that he was still alive.

"_LEEEE-ROYYY JENKINS_!" whooped Matt.

Raito eagerly awaited the end of his half hour. After Matt's time was up, he'd have to grumble out fifty words worth of relevant Mello information. Granted, fifty words wasn't much, but if Matt's technophilia was anything to go by, he would be splurging often.

While Matt was slaying dragons, Raito occupied his free time by criminal-busting. Despite A and W's dislike for Kira's killing, they still allowed criminal faces on the news. This was probably an effort to keep Kira from focusing his divine rage on helpless civilians.

Too late.

Veni, vidi, vici.

Raito _had_ killed civilians, and killing criminals was still like eating popcorn. He had his reasons, of course. It was A and W's fault for driving Raito to such drastic measures. After all, their deaths served to further Kira's divine cause. He martyred them. They died honorably.

Kira's day had drained most of his energy, so he only snapped once or twice before leaning back on his pillows and sighing at the ceiling. He could relax for the night. Perhaps he could relax every night. A and W's headquarters had inspired Raito's creative side. He could establish his snapping as a habit, and then he could kill criminals at his leisure, in full view of his skeptics. He would simply have to memorize the names of his targets the night before.

Ah, Raito. What a genius…

A sleepy, irritated genius.

Ryuzaki returned to the bedroom and three slices of chocolate cake magically appeared on the bedspread. Ryuzaki followed them, plummeting onto the bed like a clinically depressed cinderblock. He then placed each piece into his mouth, where it magically disappeared.

"Cake, Raito-kun?" Ryuzaki asked with a quirk of the eyebrow.

Raito noticed with only a drop of surprise that there was no cake left.

"There isn't any, Ryuzaki," Raito sighed and shut his eyes.

"Yes there is," insisted Ryuzaki. "Look, Raito-kun, here."

Raito glared through his eyelashes as Ryuzaki blinked his dinner plate eyes and pointed with a long, bony finger at the corner of his lips.

Crumbs.

Cake crumbs.

Raito instantly turned his head the other way and snorted. "Ryuzaki, that's disgusting."

There was an audible slump in the ex-mini-death's voice. Raito could practically see his shoulders falling and his arms crossing irately across his chest. Nevertheless, he kept his words whimsical and aloof as he usually did.

"Oh, Raito-kun. What must I do to get you to kiss me?"

Raito smirked casually at the wall.

"Hmm…" Ryuzaki hummed sagely, "What does Raito-kun find irresistible? Perhaps if I taped a mirror to my forehead…"

"Ouch," Raito sneered in spite of himself and turned toward his adversary. "I think I'm going to need some ice for that burn, Ryuzaki."

"Hm," sighed the ex-mini-death. He then raised both of his invisible eyebrows and glared dismissively down his nose at Raito. The small, brown cake crumbs still clung to the corners of his lips.

"Well, you may think this is gross, Raito-kun, but it will only get more repulsive until you remove it for me," announced Ryuzaki.

Raito raised a sarcastic eyebrow. "You want me to kiss you just because I'll be disgusted with you otherwise?"

"By hook or by crook, Raito-kun."

Raito rolled his eyes.

Being coy obviously wasn't going to work.

So, Raito took the obvious course of action.

After all, there was nothing so surprising to Ryuzaki as actually doing what he wanted.

The brunette raised his eyebrows defiantly and leaned closer to Ryuzaki. Without any warning whatsoever, he pressed his lips to the corner of the ex-mini-death's mouth.

Ryuzaki froze.

Raito smirked deliciously and dragged his tongue across the crumbs.

The ex-mini-death whined out a pathetic half-growl behind his gritted teeth.

Raito's tongue darted back between his lips and he rocked back, eyeing Ryuzaki with the same defiant stare. Panda Eyes blinked back at him in response, any former repose gone completely from his face. Obviously, he'd never been kissed before.

Well, not by anyone as dashing and perfect as _Raito_, anyway.

The ex-mini-death's jaw dropped a centimeter or two as if he were trying to remember how to speak.

"Oh," was what he said.

Raito smirked coolly to himself and relaxed on his back. Score one, Raito Yagami.

Raito watched from the corner of his eye as Ryuzaki stared listlessly at nothing in particular, blinked, turned his head blindly to the side, and sat awhile in thought. A strange reaction, Raito thought.

Suddenly, Ryuzaki spoke.

"That wasn't a kiss, I don't think."

Raito hiked his eyebrow into his hairline. "Oh really?" He frowned dismissively as Ryuzaki turned his dinner plate eyes to look at him.

"Yes," mused the ex-mini-death, regaining his composure. "Actually, I believe you were trying to suck my soul out of my body." He tilted his head at the brunette. "Were you, Raito-kun?"

"Am I a succubus, Ryuzaki?" Raito asked with demure sarcasm.

"Yes," said Ryuzaki.

"Well, since you're so _sure_," the brunette sneered deviously.

Kira's roomie narrowed his ringed eyes in comical suspicion and ran his thumb across his bottom lip. "I knew it," he mused.

And suddenly…

"You guys are _weird_."

Raito glanced slyly over to the closet, where Matt google-eyed them both.

"Maybe," said Raito.

"Yes," replied Ryuzaki.

Raito cut to the chase. "So, Matt, you've been playing those games for half an hour. That's fifty words."

Matt hummed sagely to himself and scratched his chin like Sherlock Holmes. As if to complete the impersonation, he grabbed a pen from Raito's desk, stuck it between his lips, and smoked it. "But of course, my dear Watson," he sighed in his best British accent. He then scowled and tapped his forehead with the tip of his pen. "Or was it 'Elementary, dear Watson?'" Matt shrugged and stuck the pen back in his mouth. "Either way, they both have seven syllables."

Raito didn't show his amusement.

Matt wiggled his eyebrows. "You want me to talk, hmm?"

"That would be nice," Raito hinted darkly.

"About Mello."

"Yeah."

"Mello, Mello, Mello," Matt hummed thoughtfully to himself and tapped rhythmically at his scull with the pen. "Fifty words about Mello. Where do I start…"

"Preferably with something relevant," suggested Raito.

"Ah, relevant. In that case, here I go. You can stop me anytime you want, but I'm not saying more than fifty words. If you don't like what I said, tough shit. You'll just have to try again in another thirty minutes."

"Shoot," grinned Raito.

"Awright, here we go." Matt took a deep breath. Obviously, he'd been reciting his little speech. Probably making sure it was no more than fifty words long. The bastard.

"I met him back in California. I was… a human once, L knows that. Anyway, I was gay and everybody back then was afraid of AIDS, so people hated me. I was good with a gun, Mello liked my style, unlike you guys, and he let me into his gang."

Matt clapped his hands cutely and sent the pen careening to the other side of the room. "The end!"

Raito's eyebrow twitched. "That was about _you_, not him."

"Oh, contraire," grinned Matt. "I let you know that he lived in California once, I gave you a vague timeframe, _and _I told you that Mello had more fashion sense than both you and L put together."

_Right._

"That," Matt added smartly, "and I told you that you could stop me at any time. I also said I wouldn't say more than fifty words. So, better luck next time, Kira-dono!"

Raito felt like slapping his palm to his forehead, but doing so would damage his suffering dignity. Instead, he played it cool. With a nonchalant smile, Raito sighed, "I suppose I'll have to be on guard next time."

"Damn straight," enforced Matt.

Raito sighed. Well, if nothing else, he knew a bit more about the devious enigma that was Matt the Mini-Death. For starters, he'd been alive once, and had been so in America. Judging by the 'back then' statement, Matt walked the earth quite a while ago (Seventies? Eighties?). So… he became human, then turned himself back into a mini-death.

…Could Ryuzaki do that?

Raito glanced queerly at his coon-eyed companion, and then back at Matt. Urgently, he inquired, "If you became human, how did you turn back into a psychopomp?"

"I died," shrugged Matt.

"How soon after you died?"

"I had to work at it. First, I had to escape from Hell, and then-"

Out.

Of.

The.

Question.

"Never mind," Raito interrupted with a dismissive wave of the hand.

Ryuzaki gave him an odd look.

Raito knew that look. It was much too inquisitive for his tastes, so he leapt into a pile of pointless banter and hid from it.

"I wonder when our video will air on the news."

Ryuzaki shot him a glare as cold, flat, and sharp as a pane of glass. "I wonder," he deadpanned.

Raito narrowed his eyes, raised his eyebrows, frowned, and shook his head just to show Ryuzaki how funny he thought his sarcasm was. Matt watched this exchange in bland disinterest before furtively retreating into the closet. Ryuzaki eyed Raito as if he wished to dig the brunette out of his foxhole of small-talk, but decided against it.

…Whatever.

Ryuzaki already knew Raito cared.

…But Raito still wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of an explanation. He didn't need to know the degree to which Raito cared.

The brunette turned his eyes to the news and his attention elsewhere.

So there was a way to turn Ryuzaki back into a mini-death, but it required DYING. Raito, even with his vast reservoir of post-life knowledge, wouldn't have people dying in his house. It was absurd.

He wouldn't have _Ryuzaki_ dying in his house.

He wouldn't have Ryuzaki dying at all.

Even if Raito had to risk death, himself.

"You're an odd one, Raito-kun," Ryuzaki hummed. Quietly, he sat down beside his brunette companion and snaked an arm across his shoulder.

Raito leaned back and sighed.

"That makes two of us."

--

Chibi Misa: So, yeah.

Chibi Matt: We love you and stuff, even if Swirl is a procrastimaniac.

Chibi L: The Procrast-o-Matic 5000.

Chibi Misa: The Procrastinator 3: Rise of the Reviewers.

Chibi Raito: -refusing to take part in all this nonsensical rubbish-

Me: Um, yeah. So, I love you guys and stuff? For serious? –nervous grin-

Chibis: -throw stones-

Me: Anyhow, I'm not looking forward to school. What happened to the good ole' days when people used to like going back to school?

Chibi Raito: That was just you.

Me: Oh.

Chibi Misa: Likey? No-likey? I promise to make an appearance in the next chapter! Cheer for me! Cyber-goodies for reviewers. Cookies and cake and any other otherwise fattening food you can think of. All for you. Review, review, review!


	20. The Other Ice Queen of Tokyo

DS

**DS**

**Disclaimer:** I AM FEAR. I AM DEATH. I AM… CHEESE.

(On another note: _**OVAR ONE THAAAUUUUSAND RAVYOOOOS**_. Which basically means I love all of you. My dream has come true! Thank you!)

Me: Hello and welcome, dear readers! It's time once again for the Busy Swirl-Chan Show!

Chibi L: Where Swirl-chan gives you _all_ of the reasons why she couldn't post as soon as you wanted her to.

Me: Ahem… Well, school started again. I had half a billion things to get done before break was over, including _The Invisible Man_. Odd book, I tell you. Perhaps it would've been fun to read if it wasn't accompanied by A HELLA ANNOYING ENGLISH PROJECT. Also, I got surgery at the beginning of September. Therefore, you can't blame me.

Chibi Raito: Anyway…

Me: I never thought I would be this busy, but I am currently writing three fanfics, one of which you are reading right now. The other two are saved safely on my computer. Perhaps I should post them, yezno?

Chibi Matt: FORGET ABOUT THEM AND KEEP WRITING THIS ONE.

Me: Eep!

Chibi Misa: Well, whatever. Grab a seat, a pair of pants, a bucket of chicken wings, and enjoy the show. Read, review, and relax.

**D S 20**

The video was an instant success. Aiber and the Aiber-ettes congratulated Raito and L on their award-winning performances. Upon the video's airing, X-Kira sent them a fantastic apology, along with the solemn wish of being able to meet his hero.

The tape came with a little present as well. In the package with the video, there was a piece of paper. It had something written on it.

Raito and L both squinted at the inky black type that jumped all over the pale green lines on the paper. Raito immediately snatched it out of the box. L peered over his shoulder in order to read it.

_Sunday_

_Rode the train today. Went to the beach. Surf was high, wind was warm._

_Monday_

_Shopped for new clothes today. Bought a new cellular phone. Watched soccer at noon. My team won, of course._

_Tuesday_

_Need fish food. Met a celebrity at the Note Blue today. I left a love note for him at the table. Went to Spaceland with a friend at five-o-clock in the afternoon._

_Wednesday…_

It was a… record? Hmm…

_Wednesday_

_I ate a tuna sandwich today. Hated it. Waited for someone special at the Tokyo Tower. Went on a date._

_Thursday_

_Shopping list: Eggs, flour, rice, soy sauce, Gatorade, lemons, green onions, cilantro, apples, tea, miso, ahi, detergent, fabric softener, sugar, parmesan cheese._

_Friday_

_Watched a movie. Slept._

_Saturday_

_Watched the news. Painted. Spoke to my friend. I have his eyes. Isn't that weird?_

"Yagami-kun, please don't touch that. Wedy and I need to examine it first," Aiber placidly allayed the brunette's visible fury. Raito silently nodded, without changing his expression, and set the paper back into the box.

As Wedy dusted it off, Aiber loudly mused to himself. "Well, it looks like a page from someone's diary. Why would the second Kira send it, I wonder?"

"Clues," L supplied with a shrug.

Of course, Aiber already knew that. "But what clues? Hmm…" he pondered with a comical finger to his chin.

Wedy's eyes rolled phenomenally behind her sunglasses. "This is the second Kira's history. If anything, we can discover what sort of person she is."

Raito's eyes snapped over to Wedy. "She?" he asked.

_She?_ Hmm…

"Perhaps you could explain the reasoning for your assumption?" L suggested placidly.

Wedy gave him the eye. "First of all, the second Kira went shopping on Monday. On Tuesday, the second Kira left a love note for a _male_ celebrity. What more proof do I need?"

L tilted his head and quirked a nonexistent eyebrow. "But this does not prove that the second Kira is a woman. It merely proves that he prefers shopping and men."

Beside the ex-mini-death, Raito grinned scornfully and made a clicking noise with his tongue.

Simply because he was feeling more devious than usual, L cocked a bland eyebrow and glanced at his partner in crime. "Raito-kun, surely you must have noticed these details as well. Why didn't you speak up?"

"Oh, I figured you'd say something," replied Raito with a charming, acidic smile.

Perhaps Matsuda had been shocked into action by the electric charge shooting between L and his companion. In any case, he suddenly announced with a gratuitous amount of volume that perhaps the letter wasn't a page from X-Kira's diary, but a clue.

The gleam in Aiber's eye suggested that he already knew this. In spite of his omnipotence, however, he patted Matsuda heartily on the back. "Ah, what an ingenious thought! What a wonderful mind you have there, Matsuda!"

_Pity he hadn't shown it off sooner…_

"I'm surprised neither of you thought of this," Aiber continued, casting glances of indefinite humor at Raito and L.

Ah, insinuation. L enjoyed this game, partially because it was easily won, and L could be quite the slacker when he wanted to be.

For some strange reason or another, Aiber wanted L and his brunette sidekick to discover the hidden meanings of X-Kira's whimsical evidence. He wanted them to work long, hard hours deciphering the diary entries, and he would watch. Perhaps he wanted them to become so frustrated, that they'd give themselves away somehow. Perhaps he wanted to observe the mechanisms of their collective minds, collaborating as they would like an oiled machine.

Perhaps he was just lazy.

In any case, L picked the conversation up where Matsuda clumsily dropped it.

"Mmm… yes. Since the dates are only marked as days of the week, it seems likely that the second Kira is trying to set up a schedule for us," the coon-eyed ex-mini-death mused loudly.

"Then on any days the second Kira was _meeting_ someone in a specified area," Raito interjected faux-thoughtfully, "we should expect to see him there."

"Ah… very good! Very good," Aiber stage-mused.

Ah, what wonderful actors they all were. L, Raito, Aiber, Wedy…

_Forget detective work. Perhaps they belonged in a theater…_

"But the second Kira," Soichiro suddenly grumbled, "indicated several occasions in which he or she went somewhere or met someone."

"This is true," Raito sighed as if he already knew the second Kira's favorite color and shampoo, let alone the time and location of his appearance. "But we should look for any entry in which he does something specific. Tuesday and Wednesday, for instance."

Wedy nodded thoughtfully. "Yes… a visit to the Tokyo Tower, the Note Blue, and Spaceland. Two of these occur on the same date. The Note Blue and Spaceland. Hmm…"

Raito gazed conspiringly at L.

_You know, don't you?_

…Of course.

Each option was equally likely when left unexamined by L's critical eye, but L loved to play with his food. He picked at the second Kira's ulterior motives.

Firstly, a visit to Tokyo Tower was out of the question. It was much too simple. L was confident that in order to remain unidentified for this long, the second Kira must've had at least half a brain. Besides, in contrast to Tuesday, Wednesday's meeting at the Tokyo Tower was nondescript and ill-thought out.

Yes.

The second Kira would appear on Tuesday.

On this date, he designated two locations. Perhaps he wanted to confuse them. Perhaps he wanted Aiber and Wedy to split their forces in order to search both Spaceland and the Note Blue. However, he designated a specific time for only one of the two: Spaceland. This allowed A and W to split up at five-o-clock only and search together for the remainder of the time.

Then why?

_To misdirect._

Of course.

He understood that A and W would look for a more specific description. A and W would assume that the second Kira would appear wherever he gave the most precise detail. The second Kira would avoid them both. In that case, he would appear at the Note Blue.

…Perhaps L was thinking too much.

No…

The second Kira must've left a clue in the schedule. He must've left something that only Raito would understand.

…The Note Blue.

A death note reference. Neither Aiber nor Wedy could possibly understand its implications. Also, the second Kira described meeting a celebrity. Kira was that celebrity.

Yes. The second Kira would appear at the Note Blue this Tuesday. But when?

_At five._

Yes. The time stated for the meeting at Spaceland was not intended for the theme park. While half of the team was out searching Spaceland, the second Kira would have a perfect opportunity to speak intimately with his idol.

L knew the second Kira's plan, and judging by the glow in Raito's eyes, so did he. Now, it was only a matter of misdirecting their two detective friends. Wonderful! L and Raito would think of somethi-

…

…Wait.

…How did X-Kira know that Kira was investigating him?

L glanced over once again to note that Raito didn't seem fazed. Either he didn't care, or he didn't realize.

In any case, L chose to focus on the task at hand.

"I believe we should send out two teams on Tuesday," the ex-mini-death hummed carefully. When Aiber and Wedy raised a matching pair of eyebrows, he elaborated. "Personally, I believe that Kira will appear at Spaceland during the time specified, but one can never be too certain. May I suggest Wedy-san and I organize a team for Spaceland while Aiber-san and Raito-kun visit the Note Blue?"

Raito blinked.

…Well, L had to give him an opening. In order to do that inconspicuously, he had to suggest splitting up. He also had to suggest supervision by the two ace detectives.

L could tell by the deep, amber gleam in Raito's eyes that he did not wish to be split up, but he would accept it. L was offering him a chance to catch a glimpse of his adversary, after all.

Aiber nodded slowly and thoughtfully. "A wonderful idea, but we must travel with utmost secrecy. This second Kira is much less predictable than the first-"

Raito's eye twitched-

"-and he has the power to kill on sight. We must assume that he will murder us if we reveal ourselves. This could be a trap, you know."

L and Raito both nodded resolutely.

"Now then," continued Aiber, "let us compose a plan of attack…"

--

As much as he hated to admit it, Raito was nervous. He was traveling with Halle and the remaining members of the NPA. He treaded lightly and kept his emotions under extreme surveillance. Raito casually moseyed along with Matsuda and Halle. A few acquaintances from college also kept him company. He kept his group small enough to be inconspicuous and large enough to be a credible shopping excursion through Harajuku.

The more colorful, trendy clothing shops he passed, the more credit he gave to Wedy's earlier assumption that X-Kira was a girl. Of course, plenty of men wove in and out of the shops, but he had a gut feeling…

Speaking of Wedy, she and Aiber had stayed behind. Raito had no doubt that they were interested solely in self-preservation, but he couldn't fault them. If Ukita's death was anything to go by, X-Kira had a pair of shinigami eyes and he knew how to use them.

Perhaps this shinigami wasn't as whimsical as Ryuk. Perhaps it conspired with X-Kira.

What if the schedule's purpose was to separate Raito and Ryuzaki? What if X-Kira had used his death note to split them up? Raito already considered this possibility. Therefore, he attempted to send Matt with Ryuzaki. As he remembered, it was a long and exhausting battle.

But apparently…

"Hey! Kira!" A goggle-eyed brunette hollered, "I see a sign over there! It's the Note Blue!"

…Ryuzaki had sent him back.

That idiot! Didn't he understand? He was human now, and X-Kira could kill him! Raito sent Matt with him for a reason. He didn't want anything to happen…

Since when did he have emotions like that, anyway? Since when did Kira worry? He, himself, had been the death of so many people. He killed people. Lots of people. What was one more tally on his leader board?

_Ryuzaki is… different._

…Damn. Ryuzaki was a longtime comrade. He was a friend.

_He's a hell of a lot more than that._

…When did Raito grow a conscience?

"Raito-kun," Halle suddenly pulled him out of his musings. Raito glanced over at her in a cold fashion, careful to conceal his inner turmoil. In a shockingly Lolita-like Alice getup, she had successfully subtracted about five years from her age. Flat, neon slippers also reduced her height dramatically from her normal four-inch heel boost. "I see a Note Blue sign."

"I see it, too," grumbled Raito.

"Let's head over," she hinted gravely.

Raito and Matsuda both nodded. With equally overjoyed enthusiasm, they herded the group of college students over to the hole-in-the-wall maid café. Raito eyed the building's interior through large, tinted windows. Young men colonized the pristine tables like bacteria at the edges of their Petri dishes. Between these circular islands, overdressed women in lacy French maid outfits waddled along and bowed cutely to their customers.

Raito glanced at Halle, awaiting her advice. She raised an eyebrow. "Go in," she whispered. "You take the boys in with you, and I'll take the women to that shoe store a little further down. Be careful, and remember to press that belt buckle twice if you're in danger."

Of course. Before their departure that day, Aiber had supplied them with special belts. Two rapid clicks of the buckle would inform headquarters immediately if there was a problem, and Aiber would respond to Halle's team, while Wedy would respond to Ryuzaki and Gevanni's team.

Raito sincerely hoped Ryuzaki wouldn't have to press that button…

Since Raito had his reputation to consider, Matsuda was the one to suggest dinner at the Note Blue. Naturally, the group of hormonally challenged college students agreed. Raito was dragged _oh so reluctantly_ into the café, where Matsuda tactfully chose a corner booth, from which Raito could survey the entire dining area.

In spite of the lovely eye-candy serving drinks and dinner plates to drooling onlookers, Raito's stomach began to twist. The cheerful atmosphere did nothing to belay his sudden onset of peril.

The frosty air and the sudden darkness was so dramatic, and yet it felt so frighteningly natural.

Raito wasn't afraid, was he?

"Wow, it's cold in here," muttered one of Raito's college friends. The others began to agree with him. "It's giving me the creeps," one guy laughed. "Maybe it's all those gothic posters on the wall, eh?"

So it wasn't just Raito?

He began to feel overwhelmingly relieved that Ryuzaki wasn't with him.

Raito's brief relaxation was slowly devoured by another revelation. The atmosphere struck him with another despairing wave. Perhaps…

He was going to die.

Raito's negativity stunned him. No! He wasn't going to die! He was Kira. He'd survive somehow. Besides, nothing was more ridiculous than precognition. Raito wasn't going to die. The room was dark simply because it was a sumptuously lit café. The room was cold because it was dark and the weather was overcast.

That was all.

Raito had no time for despair. He had a job to do.

X-Kira was there somewhere. He couldn't hide his shinigami from Raito. The brunette painstakingly swept the room with his eyes. One of those boys had to be X-Kira. If not a boy, then one of the waitresses.

But there was no hulking, deformed monster lurking in the shadows. Nothing slunk along the ceiling, nothing crawled along the floor, and nothing hovered in the air like a diseased, rabid, leprous Fury.

No matter how hard he scrutinized, Raito couldn't locate his shinigami.

Perhaps X-Kira was waiting in the kitchen. Perhaps he was a cook. Did he want to poison Raito with a toxic entrée?

Raito was very, very glad that Ryuzaki wasn't there.

But maybe…

Perhaps Raito had been misled. Maybe X-Kira wasn't there. Maybe X-Kira forced Ryuzaki to send Matt away in order to kill him without any complications! X-Kira knew Raito's mind better than the brunette himself. Raito had been played for a fool and now Ryuzaki was paying the price!

What if he died?

What if…

(No no no no no no no no no no.)

"Oh. My. God," a voice deadpanned from over Raito's shoulder, jolting him out of his panic. Out of the corner of his eye, Raito glanced at Matt.

The brunette mini-death's jaw hung wide open. He had pushed his glasses onto his forehead and was staring into the room with eyes like dinner plates. Matt gulped and his gaze slowly slid down to Raito.

"Hide me," he squeaked.

Without another word, he ducked fearfully into the back of Raito's seat.

_What…?_

Raito turned around, wondering at the reason for Matt's sudden cowardice. A blonde girl approached from a break in the tables. She was dressed in black, lacy frills and a maid's headband, obviously one of the waitresses. Her bright red lipstick seemed to glow almost orange in the lighting and her thick, black eyelashes veiled her eyes like a velvet curtain. She clicked her heels together at the base of his table and clasped her hands behind her back.

Her sweet, sugar-glazed smile gave Raito the chills.

His college friends whistled as she curtsied. Raito only stared as the blonde girl inclined her head. For some reason, she seemed to be directing her attention strictly to him…

Before Raito had any time to doubt himself, she winked a chocolate brown eye and flashed him a conspiratorial smile. "Welcome home, Master."

Something shimmered past her shoulder and Raito glanced over to see what it was. A pale, angular, gangly specter hovered next to the open bar.

_No!_

_Yes!_

Raito carefully concealed his excitement as he returned his eyes to the waitress. As she playfully danced around to take orders, the brunette's emotions played ping-pong with his brain.

On one hand… Yes! This little _girl_ was X-Kira. Raito knew it. He had made contact, and so far, neither Halle nor Matsuda had noticed. Raito memorized everything about her. He catalogued the gentle curves of her face, the wide, naïve clarity in her eyes, and the sparkling opalescence of her skin. He counted the repetitive taps of her shoes, locating the rhythm of her steps and burning it into his memory. Raito dissected the bubbly, high-pitched squeal of her voice.

She was predictable now. X-Kira was so _very_ predictable and defenseless against the overwhelming Force of Nature that was Lord Kira.

On the other hand…

…Why did she wink at him?

_Why, she knows you're Kira, of course._

But… How? How could she possibly know? How had she known he would join the investigation? According to Matt, Ryuk's eyes couldn't separate Kira from a civilian. Was he lying? Was this X-Kira special? Did Matt hide because of her?

_Matt._

Damn. He couldn't bother the mini-death at all during this excursion. Raito was bugged from head to toe, and voluntarily so. He had no choice in the matter.

Helplessly, Raito ordered something simple from the menu. She jotted a quick little note on her pad of paper before bowing and waddling daintily back to the kitchen.

(There was a very strange glow in her eyes…)

Suddenly, Matt popped back out of the bench and shrieked, "Holy _SHIT_. You're in trouble, man. You're in a heap of trouble. If you weren't loaning me electronics, I'd be long gone by now!"

Raito leaned casually on the cushions and slid over to face Matt. He glared coldly, demanding an explanation.

"She's the devil," Matt supplied unhelpfully.

Raito flattened his lips into a fine, unimpressed line.

"No, seriously," the brunette mini-death enforced. "She's the _Devil_. I've been to hell. I should know."

So… Matt was saying… X-Kira was…

Raito couldn't stop the sudden fit of epileptic twitching that erupted at the corner of his eye.

_Oh, sweet Jesus._

--

Later that evening, L would be warned by an anxious Matt that the look on Raito's face when he got home was the scariest thing since _Ringu_, and L would believe him.

Raito burst through the door and, much to L's fascination, Matt hadn't been lying. The brunette's grin gleamed with the happy daggers of murder and his brown eyes shone like the rusty, grimy remains of spilt blood. L waited patiently as Raito stalked into the room, unsure as to the nature of Kira's incidental madness. His eyes spoke of murder while his grin shouted triumph.

The brunette hunched over and paced once in a 'U' shape around his room. Abruptly, he stopped. L observed from behind a fringe of blurry, black bangs as Raito's cruel smile broadened and his eyes glowed with an outlandish fire.

"Ryuzaki," the brunette announced in the most vampiric of tones.

"Yes?" L replied politely.

"Guess what?"

"What?"

"I am amazing."

L's eyebrows both shot into his hairline. Ah. So Raito was in a terrifically good mood, then. He continued to glare like a tiger in a butcher shop, though, so L remained as unshakable and serene as a Greek statue.

"Of course you're amazing. Magnificent," agreed L. "May I inquire as to the nature of this discovery?"

"I am invincible, all-powerful, and I am Kira" Raito grinned.

"Yes," said L.

"I am the most dominant being in the known universe."

Well, L didn't want to make him angry, so… "Yes."

"And I have allies in the highest of places."

Ah. Now we were getting somewhere. L's search party had come across nothing, as the ex-mini-death had expected, so naturally, Raito's Shinigami-dar had to pick up something. Perhaps he'd found his X-Kira.

"What kinds of allies?" L asked.

"Divine ones," Raito announced homicidally.

…Oh. "…And which side of the divine spectrum do these allies tend to lean upon?"

"The evil one," said Raito.

…Oh.

Well that was… odd.

L, in his infinite wisdom, decided that it was a prime moment to correct Raito's misguided enthusiasm. "Oh, my dear, dear Raito," the ex-mini-death sighed. "You see, the shinigami come from that side. They're trying to kill you, my dear boy, not help you."

"Allies, Ryuzaki," Raito reminded him as he sat regally on his edge of the bed, "not friends."

_Ah._

"Tools of interest?" L asked blandly.

"Yes," smiled Raito.

"Oh come on, man!" Matt interrupted with an exasperated groan. "There's no way you can just _use_ her! She's the fucking _Devil _for Christ's sake!"

Raito rolled his eyes.

L blinked several times in rapid succession and smiled in vacant, polite confusion. "The what?"

"The Big Bad Wolf," crooned Matt. "Ahriman. The Evil One. The hot, red, lesbian decal stabbing a truck window with a pitchfork. The personification of cold coffee, lunch-rush traffic, and malfunctioning Roman candles! Bowser! Jenova! Darth Sidius! Internet Explorer! EEeeeeviiilllll…"

Raito gagged. "She's a little girl. She's about as harmful as a box of kittens."

"Hellllllll Kittensssss…"

"Shut up, Matt."

Meanwhile, L's sharp wit and lightning-fast cognitive skills were still trying to catch up with his companions.

So Raito was… _happy _to have the forces of evil working ambiguously in his favor? He was aware that these were the _forces of EVIL_ he was talking about, wasn't he? He intended to control a notoriously untrustworthy individual?

He intended to use _HER?_

(She was actually on Earth? Why? How? When? How long ago? For what amount of time? Did she bring an army of shinigami with her? What kind of disguise was she wearing? Why wasn't the Supreme Being of heaven, Nirvana, etc. doing anything about it?)

Oh, it was too much.

If L couldn't possibly understand what Raito was talking about, then neither could Raito.

"Raito-kun," L turned gravely to his brunette companion. Kira raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

"You are insane."

"I am not," denied Raito.

"Yes, you are," L pointed out factually with a jab of his pointer finger. "You see, my intuition and outstanding deductive reasoning have led me to conclude that you cannot possibly be sane. Therefore, you are insane."

"I'm fine, Ryuzaki. As a matter of fact, I feel brilliant."

"No, you don't. 'Fine' people-" though L couldn't say Raito _wasn't_ fine-diddly-ein- "know the consequences of their actions. Insane people don't know what they're talking about. Therefore, Raito-kun, you are insane and I must detain you for being so."

Raito raised an amused eyebrow. "Detain me where, Ryuzaki?"

"Somewhere," L replied sagely.

"Is that all?" Raito asked as if he were about to die of boredom.

"Not quite." L narrowed his eyes secretively and leaned over Raito. "I have some very important advice to give you."

Raito blinked up at him, eyes having lost much of their murderous luster, and frowned. "What advice?"

"You," L zoomed in grimly, "are insane."

Raito rolled his eyes. "This is getting repetitive."

"Yes," agreed L. "They say that repetition encourages learning. I am eager for you to learn, Raito-kun, that you are putting yourself in grave danger. Has it not occurred to you that this 'ally' of yours is a divine entity, and a tricky one at that? I do not trust your judgment, Raito-kun, and I thereby forbid you to leave this house."

Raito's placid grin fell into a severe scowl. "Oh, do you?"

L glared pointedly at his stubborn, suicidal charge. He sighed with exasperation and shook his head. L didn't believe Raito could forge a strong relationship with the Mistress of Evil, but ignoring her wasn't a stellar plan either.

Well… so the story went, she _did_ have an appetite for especially good-looking men.

…Oh, bucket of shoes.

By all means, L should've been jumping for joy. The Pink Fury wouldn't kill Raito. Perhaps it was no accident that both Kiras chosen by the Man Upstairs were some degree of 'good looking.'

But… Raito belonged to L. Now, he wasn't usually this possessive, but Raito's dashing physique and enigmatic charm attracted competition. He fascinated women and men from college, Mikami, _Satan_… L _really _didn't want to share, but he supposed sharing Kira was just part of the mini-death job description.

If L hoarded Raito, they'd both be killed.

"Love is an obstacle," L grumbled, seemingly out of nowhere.

Raito arched an eyebrow. "I agree."

"You're not supposed to agree," groused L.

If L's sudden outburst piqued Raito's curiosity, he didn't show it. He knew its implications, though. Indifferently, the brunette stretched out on his bed and picked a nondescript section of the wall to stare at.

"I have a feeling she'll call me," he droned.

"You didn't give her your number, did you?" L jabbed.

Raito pulled a face. "No, of course not. I'm not leaving any evidence that I'm conspiring with someone. She knows who I am. She'll find my number somewhere."

L resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Does she have a shinigami with her?"

Raito nodded.

Wonderful. L had a feeling _Raito _wouldn't be controlling anyone. The Queen of the Shinigami brought a death note with her as an item of persuasion. If she wanted Raito to do her bidding, she had only to…

…Threaten L.

…

She knew about the two of them. Of course she knew. She had more friends in loftier places than Raito could possibly imagine. L found it difficult to excuse Ryuk for his 'personal enjoyment' motive. If his master wanted information, the dusty shinigami would sing like a bird.

Perhaps Ryuk had been spying on them. Maybe that was how the divine X-Kira learned that Raito and L were both on the investigation team.

L didn't want to rain on Kira's ego parade, so he kept silent. Besides, what had Raito enlisted Matt for, if not to defend him and L against supernatural murder? As long as he paid the mini-death mercenary in electronics, neither of them had anything to fear.

As long as she didn't go after Raito, L was at ease.

L didn't have much time to worry, though, as his train of thought was swiftly derailed by the high-pitched ringing of a cellular phone.

--

Raito wasn't nervous.

Why would Raito be nervous?

Kira couldn't be nervous. It was impossible.

How dare _anyone_ think Raito was nervous!

Even though he found himself lacking any ounce of control over this 'Satan' business, Raito had his emotions under perfect control. Fate would eventually swing his way, just like it always did. He smiled because he was devilishly happy. He tapped his fingers against the sheets because he was full of anticipation. _Full_ of anticipation and energy!

Not nervous energy, mind you.

Because that would make him nervous.

And Raito wasn't nervous.

Out of the corner of his eye, he examined Ryuzaki. The ex-mini-death stared intently at the bedroom door with vexed dinner plate eyes. Well, his scowl wasn't any deeper than when Raito had entered the room. He didn't seem to be contemplating anything in particular.

Good.

Then perhaps he didn't realize the danger he was in yet.

Raito wanted his pessimism to explode and die in a violent display of red and yellow, but alas, it never did. It stalked his thoughts and slipped into the spaces where his optimism should've been. Raito struggled to push it away, but it never budged.

When he first entered the room, Raito announced to no one but himself that he was on top of the world. Kira was in control. Kira had allies, and he would use them. He hoped that this sudden surge of confidence would overload his circuits and flood his system with inspiration. He hoped that, in explaining this power to himself, he would come up with a plan to keep that power.

Raito's brilliance failed him.

Now, the scenarios of Ryuzaki's death flashed before his eyes.

Over and over and over again.

Drowning, burning, cardiac arrest, vehicular homicide, heat stroke, concussion, coma, suffocation, stabbing, shooting, loss of blood, infection, decapitation, spine compression, falling from a bridge, being bitten by a spider-dog-cat-bat-ferret-alligator-snake-

No.

Raito wouldn't let it happen. He wouldn't. He _couldn't_.

Allowing Ryuzaki to die would be a failure on Kira's part, and Kira never failed.

Never.

_Oh, come on. It's not just 'failures' you're worried about. Admit it. You have a heart._

…Yes. He did. Ryuzaki had a habit of pulling it out of his chest, shoving it into his face, and saying, 'look at what I found, Raito-kun! Look!'

Raito had a sinking feeling that he'd get a phone call from this mysterious deity sometime that day, and when the phone finally rang, he instantly picked it up.

Because… he wasn't…

…Nervous.

"Raito Yagami, here," he greeted with a level voice.

"Oh, Yagami-kun! I'm so happy to finally _meet_ you!" A terrifyingly squeaky voice rejoiced.

Kira, ever on high alert, suspected that the call may have been a trap set by A and W. As nondescriptly as he could, Raito asked, "Pardon me, but who are you?"

"Oh, don't be like that!" the voice squeaked puckishly. "Don't tell me you've forgotten little old _meeee!_ You'll hurt my feelings, Yagami-kun!"

"Maybe you have the wrong number," Raito suggested warily. "What did you say your name was?"

"Misa-Misa Amane-chan!" the voice bubbled. Then, the speaker paused for a suspenseful breath. "Though most people know me by other, less-_cute_ names."

"And you like cute names?" Raito asked with a raised eyebrow. He began to suspect that this wasn't a trick.

"Of course!" giggled the voice. "Apollyon, Abaddon, and Satan get really old after a while."

Yes. So this was her after all.

"I had a lot of fun with 'Lucifer,'" she rambled on excitedly, "because I could make people say 'All hail Queen Lucy' and I could pretend I was from _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_!"

…Oh boy.

As she digressed on the cuteness of saying 'Misa' twice in a row, Raito covered the cell phone with his hand and glared Matt pointedly in the face. She couldn't be as bad as his mini-death and ex-mini-death friends had led him to believe. 'Misa' was too… girly.

"She can't be that evil," grumbled Raito.

"Oh yes, she can," the brunette mini-death corrected with an enthusiastic nod.

Skeptically, Raito raised an eyebrow. "…How?"

"They say that silence is golden," Matt remarked sagely. "If silence is golden, then hell is paved with shit."

Raito's other eyebrow rose to meet the first. Politely, he asked Matt what the hell he meant.

"She. Will. Talk. Your. Ears. Off," Matt announced gravely. "There's a reason it's called 'hell' down there, you know. Sure, the sticky humidity, the oily pizza, the malfunctioning air-conditioning, and the rotten fish smell are all equally horrible, but Queen Lucy's voice takes the cake. You can't get away from it. It _follows_ you. _Jabber-jabber-jabber-jabber- _People say there's no peace in hell, and they're right! There's none at all!"

Oh.

Well…

Misa's cheerful chatter stopped suddenly, and Raito once again brought the phone to his ear. He was only mildly surprised when it started up again.

"Raito-kun-Raito-kun-Raito-kun! Oh, we should get together sometime! We should go out for ice cream! Maybe we could go on a date to the theme park! Please go with me!"

Raito eyed his raccoon-and-goggle-eyed audience. Hesitantly, he muttered, "Misa…"

"Oh! Raito-kun!" Misa suddenly giggled, "Call me Queen Lucy! Just this once! Say 'All hail Queen Lucy!' Wouldn't it just be the cutest thing you've ever heard?"

"Misa…"

"Awwww! C'mon Raito-waito-chan! _Pweeeaaaase?_ Pwetty pwease with sugar on top?"

Well, Raito didn't necessarily want to make her angry. "…All hail Queen Lucy."

"Yaaaaaaayyyyyy!" squealed the Devil.

Somehow, this girlish cackling didn't strike Raito as 'evil.' Perhaps his earlier fears had been foolish. She brought a shinigami with her, and this gave Raito the impression that she wasn't anywhere near as powerful as he first thought. Perhaps she needed the shinigami's power because she had none of her own.

Could be…

Raito couldn't afford to let his guard down, though. According to Ryuzaki, Misa was awfully devious. Maybe her overwhelming display of cuteness was a ploy to get Raito to underestimate her.

_Devious indeed._

Well, Raito had the finest mind on the planet. His best bet would be to see her as a human, not some sort of supernatural phenomenon. This perception would make her much easier to defeat. If she wanted to assist him, fine, but if she planned on crossing him…

The world would see who was more devious.

Misa spoke. "Raito-chaaaaan! Let's make a date! I really want to see you again!"

Of course she did. Raito, however, couldn't afford to _suddenly_ make a friend from the Maid Café where he'd gone Kira-hunting. Someone on the investigation team was bound to recognize her.

That, and everyone _knew_ Raito batted for the other team. He couldn't date a girl. That would make him a three_-_timer, or something. Dealing with Mikami's abandonment issues was enough. He didn't need 'Queen Lucy' to gush all of her evil social problems on him as well.

"Sorry Misa," he tried his best to sound apologetic. "I can't do that."

"Why not?" she asked innocently.

"I just can't. My investigation team suspects me of being Kira. We came to the Note Blue because of the schedule you sent us. If I were to suddenly date you, they'd execute us both for being Kiras."

Misa's voice took on a sinister rasp as she pouted, "Oh, those _horrible _people. Always getting in the way…"

Wait.

Raito smelled an opportunity.

"Things would be so much easier if A and W weren't around…"

The rest of the team would blame Raito if A and W suddenly died of heart failure, but if Misa incidentally decided to kill them all…

Speaking of which, why hadn't Raito already killed them all? He could cause instant heart failure with only a face.

_You like playing around with them. That's why._

…Perhaps.

_Sick bastard._

Where did that inner voice come from?

_You grew a conscience, remember?_

…Fine.

"Raito-chaaaaannnnn! You don't want them to die! What about your daddy? What about your friends?"

Did Raito care?

No.

"My dad likes to get in the way when I'm having fun," shrugged Raito. Ryuzaki gave him a dirty look.

"Oooooh, Raito-chaaaannn! You're such a bad boy! I love it." Misa squealed. "But I really, _really_ wanna' see you again! You're so cute!"

Way to hit Raito's ego below the waist…

"Please say you'll go out with me!" Misa continued to plead, "If you don't say yes, I don't know what I'll do…"

"_If you don't say yes, I might have to kill somebody."_

Ryuzaki.

"Don't be sad, Misa," Raito sighed. "I'm sure I can think of something. Besides, seeing you in that dress again is _well _worth the risk."

He had to agree. He had no choice. Misa had backed Raito into a corner. Still, he was careful to chill his raging emotions to room temperature before they left his lips. He didn't let Misa know that her threat had hit its bull's-eye. He was simply being a suave, civil gentleman who didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

Misa erupted into a giggling fit. "Raito! You don't mean that!"

No. He didn't.

He also wished desperately for Misa to pick the formalities back up, diminutive though they were.

Raito chuckled politely at her enthusiasm. "When and where should I expect to see that dress again?"

"At the Tokyo Tower tomorrow, of course! Didn't you read the memo?"

…What?

But…

No!

Then Raito would be discovered for sure! What would A and W think if Raito met Misa for a date at the Tokyo Tower, just like the schedule said?

Perhaps she meant to expose Raito as Kira. Then, the investigation team and the scattered remnants of the police department would flock to the area. Either she would kill them or she would use them to kill Raito, thus eliminating her shinigami's competition. The latter seemed much more probable.

_Hoo-boy._

How to spin the situation to Raito's favor…

A ha.

It was an incredibly risky move on Raito's part, but when _wasn't _Raito taking risky moves lately? He'd developed a talent for walking on thin ropes.

This particular risky move couldn't be considered a rope, because in reality, it was more of a string. Raito could possibly absolve himself from conviction by informing A and W that he thought his new date was the second Kira. This, of course, would bring up Misa's schedule and the fact that she was "meeting a celebrity" and "leaving him a love note," thereby plastering the 'Kira' label on Raito's forehead.

Yes, it was dangerous, but Raito had no other choice.

He had to splurge to the detectives and he also had to make a stunning first impression on Misa. If A and W condemned Raito as Kira, he would continue to proclaim his innocence. If he was in a particularly perilous situation, he would act the part of the dazed victim. He would act horrified and sickened by the fact that he might possibly be Kira. Raito would appeal to the investigation team's better nature.

And if he was on the brink of execution, he'd simply kill them all.

There.

As for Misa, Raito would do whatever he could to make sure that she was completely and _wholly_ enamored with him. He planned on forging an emotional attachment which she wouldn't be able to break.

He'd distract her from Ryuzaki by whatever means possible. If she ever made an attempt on his life, well…

It would be a quiet day in hell.

Raito smiled into the cell phone. "Of course I read the memo. What time do you want to meet?"

"Oh… how 'bout the same time we met tonight?"

"Five?"

"Yep!"

"Sounds great, Misa. I'll see you there." Purely for consistency, he added, "Don't forget that dress."

Misa giggled uncontrollably. "I won't, silly! Have a wonderful night, Rai-chan! Misa-Misa says 'sweet dreams!' Dream about Misa, okay?"

"Okay," chuckled Raito. "Enjoy yourself tonight. Sweet dreams to you, too, Misa."

"I love you Raito-chan!" squealed Misa.

"I love you, too. Goodnight."

_Eww, eww, eww, eww, eww-_

Finally, Misa hung up. With a fantastic sigh and a cosmic roll of the eyes, Raito fell back onto his pillows and shut his phone off. He was left to contemplate the meaning of the universe for seventy-one hundredths of a second.

"I am jealous," grumbled Ryuzaki.

_Why…_

"I am tired," Raito replied in the same level deadpan.

"I am Matt," said Matt.

Raito coldly excused Matt to the closet.

This left him alone with Ryuzaki, and he was far too emotionally taxed to deal with the ex-mini-death's jealousy. He wasn't about to explain the reasoning behind his agreement to date Misa. Raito didn't want Ryuzaki to worry.

What Raito was _not_ expecting, however, was this:

"I don't think you've told me you love me yet, Raito-kun."

Oh.

Well la-di-_frickin'_-da!

Raito was through. _Through_. He had his share of turmoil, and he didn't need any more of it. He didn't need Ryuzaki's whining after he'd listened to the incessant squeal of a teenage demon for the past seventeen minutes.

Besides, telling Ryuzaki that he loved him was just too… cliché. 'I love you' was a statement Raito reserved for sentimental women. It was the mantra of adolescent girls with abandonment issues. He said it to shut them up.

Saying it to Ryuzaki would be… demeaning.

_Get over it._

Easy for a conscience to say…

_No, really. Get over it. What better way to prove your love to someone than to get over your embarrassment? Go ahead. Tell him. It'll shut him up for a while._

What a persuasive conscience Raito had.

_A man after your own heart._

…That was disgusting.

_You love men._

Only Ryuzaki.

_There. Was that so hard?_

No, it wasn't, but Raito still couldn't say it. 'I love you' was always a lie.

_And you won't lie to Ryuzaki._

No. He wouldn't.

Sometime during this engaging inner battle, Raito felt a heavy weight settle itself on his waist. He cracked an eye open to find that Ryuzaki had taken up a criss-cross residence on his lap.

…Oh.

--

Raito's lack of compassion astounded L sometimes. He could proclaim his love so fervently to those he planned on suckering further down the road, and yet he could say nothing to L. The ex-mini-death understood that human males generally didn't profess their love verbally, but if Raito could say it to 'Misa', then he could say it to L.

"Ryuzaki, what are you-"

"I'm sitting on you, Raito-kun," said L.

There really wasn't much more of an explanation. L didn't know why he'd done it, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

"Are you insinuating something?" Raito growled faux-suggestively.

Dodging the point, was he?

Ah. Perhaps that was why L sat on him? L unconsciously wished to act out a metaphor, in which he prevented Raito from evading the question by sitting on him?

…Okay. That was ridiculous.

"I do not want to push you into this," L changed the subject, "but you have not quite declared your commitment to this relationship."

"You want me to tell you I love you," Raito inferred.

"Yes," said L.

Raito eyed him behind a narrow veil of lashes and broadened his thin-lipped frown. He brought his hands behind his head and sighed. "If I say it now, it'll sound fake because you suggested it," he stated.

"That is fine," L replied.

And it was. It seemed Raito could only perform a fake 'I love you' after all.

Ah, but where were L's manners? Raito had just been through a terrific ordeal. He'd struck a deal with the devil today, and the ex-mini-death didn't need to push him into further mental turmoil.

_Where_ were L's manners?

He didn't have any.

"You're very high-maintenance when you want to be," Raito grumbled.

"Asking for a simple statement is high-maintenance?" asked L.

"Yes," replied Raito.

L rolled his eyes and stretched out on top of his irresolute love interest. He folded his arms across Raito's chest, rested his chin on the backs of his wrists, and stared blankly into Raito's honey-brown eyes. The brunette frowned at him. Absently, L kicked his legs back and forth through the air.

"I am holding you hostage," L decided.

"Fantastic," Raito replied in an airy, singsong sort of way.

When the brunette said no more for a grand total of five minutes, L began to lose hope. It occurred to him sometime during his gloomy musings that he was being a selfish son-of-a-bitch, and an overly sentimental one at that. However, for all of the caring L had done on Raito's behalf, he felt he deserved a moment of schmaltziness.

"Say it, Raito-kun," L goaded. "I dare you."

Raito's unreadable glare softened into a sort of apologetic uncertainty. "I never would've thought you _wanted_ me to say it."

L raised an eyebrow and stilled the inverted pendulum of his feet. "And why wouldn't I?"

"You know it sounds fake when I say it," sighed Raito.

Ah. So he recognized it, too? L almost found it endearing that Raito was so cautious about sounding 'fake' to him.

Almost.

"Here is a challenge for you, oh mighty Kira," L announced sagely. "Why don't you try to make it sound honest? Since you lie and cheat by profession, it should be a mission worthy of your superior improvisational skills, yes?"

Raito's eyes glinted a deep shade of amber as his eyebrows descended menacingly upon them. His lips curled out and down in an appalled frown.

"Are you suggesting that I'm only capable of lying to you, Ryuzaki?"

"I am," stated L.

This encouraged a fabulous sigh from Raito as the brunette crossed his arms across his face and pressed his nose into the hollows of his elbows. "You choose the worst times to be difficult, you know that?" he muttered.

Incidentally, L picked that moment of his life to be the corniest.

"Ah, the labors of love, Raito-kun," L deadpanned.

"Ryuzaki…"

"Oh, fine." L grumbled with a puff of air at his bangs. "If you cannot handle something as simple as a statement of adoration, then I suppose you-"

L discovered quite abruptly that he couldn't talk anymore. Raito's arms had hooked around his back and drawn him forward. L felt the brunette's fingertips pressing roughly into his scalp. He saw Raito's eyes, mere centimeters away, not closed or half-lidded as the situation warranted, but wide, annoyed, and decidedly amused.

L felt something soft and warm pressing against his lips.

Was Raito…

…Kissing him?

His earlier irritation vanished completely. Replacing it was the pull of intrigue and curiosity.

He leaned in without the help of Raito's fingertips and parted his lips in response to the brunette's searching tongue.

(Well, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.)

L wrapped his arms around Raito's shoulders as the brunette kissed him deeply. L marveled at the fluttering warmth that suddenly flourished in his chest and washed across his body. Raito's tongue grazed the roof of his mouth and L twisted his feet together to shut out the tingling sensation that shot from his eyes to his toes.

Soon (too soon, if L had anything to say about it), Raito's lips retreated with a soft 'chu.' L craned his head back and rested his chin on the backs of his hands to look Raito in the eye again.

"That's it?" he made an effort to sound disinterested, but his astounding lack of breath left L's voice airy, deprived, and mildly desperate.

"That's it?" Raito quoted with a smug smirk. He ran his fingertips down the side of L's face. "You looked like you were about to faint. You weren't breathing at all."

L scowled. "I wasn't?"

"Nope," grinned Raito.

"Would it be terribly cliché if I said that you take my breath away?"

"Terribly," grinned Raito.

L allowed his lips to curve out in a lazy, satisfied smile. "I suppose you think this constitutes an 'I love you,' then?"

"Of course," Raito boldly replied.

L made a show of rolling his eyes, but he felt no anger toward his brunette companion. Raito made it clear that his 'I love you's were just for show. He felt so comfortable singing his lies to people he didn't really care about. Perhaps years and years of fabricated affection had ingrained in Raito's head that saying the three magic words was more of a curse. In Raito's mind, 'I love you' was annoying protocol and nothing more.

Now, Raito couldn't say he hadn't kissed women to shut them up, and he couldn't say he'd never lied to anyone with a kiss. Mikami came to mind, but Raito _definitely_ hadn't kissed Mikami like that.

Raito wouldn't lie to him.

L pressed his forehead against Raito's and they both went comically cross-eyed. "It seems my kissing technique needs to be improved," L remarked factually.

"So it does," Raito agreed.

"Perhaps I should practice it so I will not disappoint you so much next time, Raito-kun."

"Maybe you should."

"Ah, but I will need someone to practice on."

"That _is _a problem."

"Perhaps you would like to volunteer, Raito-kun?" L suggested with a wry smile.

Raito smirked.

Taking that as a 'yes,' L licked his lips and dove for Raito's beautiful smile.

There were no 'I love you's exchanged. There were no heartfelt confessions made. L hadn't gotten _exactly _what he wanted, but for now, he'd settle for another kiss.

--

Chibi Misa: BOHAHAHAHAHA!

Chibi Matt: LEEEROOOOYYYY JEEENKIIIINNNSSS!

Chibi L: I LIKE CAKE! :3

Me: Well, ladies and gentlemen? Enjoy yourselves?

Chibi Raito: I must admit, you're not a very strategic fluff-coordinator.

Me: Who cares, as long as it's there? The plot is overtaking the romance in this thing. I must keep my love-bunnies alive!

Chibi Raito: There'll be time for that later.

Me: Nope. Fluff. Now.

Chibi L: -tackles Chibi Raito-

Chibi Raito: Shit, no!

Chibi Inner Raito: _Fuck, yes!_

Chibi Misa: I finally make an appearance! Yaaaayyyyy! And I'm the Devil! Even more Yaaaaayyyyy!

Me: Yes, you Misa fanatics! You get Evil!Misa! And get this… she's ambiguously smart!

Chibi Raito: Gasp!

Chibi L: Gasp!

Chibi Audience: GASP!

Chibi Misa: Review and tell me how awesome I am! Go on. You know you want to. I'm cute, I'm cuddly, I'm blonde, and I'm psychotically evil! Go, me!

Chibi Matt: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW!


	21. An Eye for Eye

**DS**

**Disclaimer:** Guess who Death Note doesn't belong to! Guess right, and win a prize!

Me: Hmmkay. So. Here's the deal _this_ month. I got asked by somebody relatively famous to illustrate a web comic that _might_ get turned into a movie if it's good enough. So if I don't update for two months or something, that's why. I'm trying _really_ hard to be on time, though, so you can bet I'll post sometime near my one month deadlines.

Chibi L: Now that this month's poor excuse is over, welcome to another chapter of Death and His Shadow.

Chibi Misa: Wherein I make another star-studded appearance! Yay!

Chibi Matt: Action! Romance! Horror! Will they make it out of the Vietnamese jungle alive? Will Elizabeth Swan choose Will or Captain Jack? DoesSnape finally kill Dumbledore? Johnny Depp, Catharine Zeta Jones, and Chuck Norris star in this week's installment of Death and His Shadow: The Revenge!

Chibi Raito: …Yes. That.

Chibi Misa: Please notice the glowing, red, EXIT signs to the left or right of the auditorium. These exits are to be used in the event of an emergency! Please turn off all cell phones and enjoy the show! Read, review, and relax!

**D S 21**

Everyone in HQ stared at Raito with varying degrees of shock, confusion, and disbelief. This was only natural, considering the short, simple sentence they were _almost certain _they heard coming from Raito's lips.

Matsuda, ever inquisitive, was the first to break the silence.

"What?" he squeaked.

"I said, 'I think the second Kira is stalking me,'" growled Raito.

"And what brings you to this conclusion?" Wedy asked calmly.

Raito sighed violently to himself. He had been cornered by the personification of evil, he hadn't slept, it was three-o-clock in the morning, and he had held this _exact same_ conversation eight times before. He didn't need Wedy's skepticism right now.

"She called me," said Raito.

"And what was so special about this phone call?"

"She knew my name, she knew my number, she called herself 'Lucifer,' and she described herself as the waitress who took my order at the maid café."

Wedy rolled her eyes behind her glittering sunglasses. "She could've looked in the phone book if you left a check with your name on it."

"And she threatened to kill you all," Raito deadpanned.

Silence.

Good.

"This is true," enforced Ryuzaki in a grim, grievous rasp.

Aiber literally stepped in. He slipped between Raito and Wedy, interrupting their staring contest, and asked, "If this was such an important matter, why did you wait so long to contact us?"

"Because I was worried that you'd think I was Kira," Raito sighed.

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Wedy asked in a voice laced with sarcasm.

Of course. She just had to mock him, didn't she? Women, women, women. Raito would _never_ get enough of them, no matter how hard he tried.

So, in the interest of being equally difficult, Raito said, "Figure it out."

"Goodness gracious," Aiber suddenly exclaimed with a bounce on his toes, "I feel like I've been thrown into a den of lions!"

"Actually, you stepped into it," Ryuzaki pointed out.

"True," Aiber conceded with a comical shrug of the shoulders, "but I'd rather keep this investigation professional, not turn it into a mud-wrestling brawl fest. So if neither of you can be civil," he eyed Wedy in particular, "I'm afraid I might have to kick you all out for an hour or two."

Wedy crossed her arms frostily across her chest and leaned back against the wall.

Raito quelled his tempestuous anger.

Quite satisfied with himself, Aiber squared his shoulders and slapped his classic, lopsided grin onto his face once again. "So, Yagami-kun, please tell me what's worrying you so. I promise to hold you in high and innocent regard unless significant evidence points to the contrary. Now splurge."

Incidentally, this did nothing for Raito's mood.

"Well, the second Kira's schedule said that yesterday, she'd leave a love note for a celebrity at the Note Blue. Matsuda and I went to the Note Blue-"

"And did she leave you a love note?" Aiber interrupted with a quirk of the eyebrow.

"…Of a sort," Raito supposed.

"What sort?"

"She kept winking at me," and she called him 'Master,' but Raito assumed that was just protocol at a maid café… Right? "She also called me later, somehow knowing my name and my number, and asked me if I wanted to go on a date to the Tokyo Tower."

Gevanni and the CIA, Halle and the NPA, and A and W themselves fell uncharacteristically still.

"Today," Raito added for dramatic effect.

Ryuzaki cast him a translucent, sidelong glance that clearly said, _are you sure you wanted to say all of that?_

Of course. If Raito wanted to gain their trust, he would get nowhere by withholding observations from the investigation team. It was possible that he was digging his own grave, but if the team turned on him, nothing was keeping him from shoving them in and burying them alive.

"You are fulfilling the tasks stated in the schedule," Aiber mused calmly. He aimed a smoldering, intelligent eye at Raito and crooned, "Are you certain you've never met this girl before?"

"I'm sure," said Raito.

"Mmmm…" the blonde man mumbled thoughtfully as he completed one pace between Raito and Wedy. He stopped and stroked the bristles on his chin for a moment or two. "In any case, it has become clear to me that this 'Lucifer' of yours is the second Kira, but the question is: are you the first?"

Raito didn't let the accusation bother him. He kept calm and still. Laconically and in the most militaristically clipped of tones, Raito stated, "I am not Kira."

"Fair enough," shrugged Aiber. He smiled dubiously and raised his hands into the air like a bamboozled cartoon character. "I can't prove that you are, you can't prove that you aren't… Vicious, isn't it, this 'investigation' business?"

"Are you saying that you still suspect me?" Raito asked, feigning gloomy surprise.

"It's difficult not to, especially when you fit so _perfectly_ into the second Kira's plans. I'm a suspicious man, Yagami-kun," Aiber smiled placidly, "You must forgive my rudeness."

Raito crossed his arms and grunted. "And I thought you were on my side."

"You're not on our side?" Aiber asked, dramatically shocked onto one foot.

"You know what I meant," Raito grumbled.

"Oh, Yagami-kun, Yagami-kun," Aiber sighed lightheartedly, "It's difficult to gain my trust, remember?"

Raito chose to smile hopefully. "Well, you must have _some_ trust in me to keep me on the investigation team, right?"

Aiber erupted in resounding barks of laughter. He slapped Raito heartily on the back and leaned on him like an old drinking buddy. "Keep your enemies close, eh, Yagami-kun?"

Raito chuckled faux-nervously with him.

_Oh, he was keeping them close, all right._

"So what should I do?" he asked once Aiber was done shoving him around.

"About the second Kira? Well, you should definitely meet with her. Lord knows what she'd do to you if you didn't," Aiber replied. "I'll send Gevanni with you to keep you company."

"_Who_ will send Gevanni?" Wedy scoffed.

"Oh, my mistake. _You_ will, my dear," beamed Aiber.

Wedy squared her shoulders menacingly and shot her colleague a glare that could fry kittens on contact. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I've ever allowed you to order me around."

"Never," agreed the grinning man.

Wedy defiantly flicked her bangs out of her face. "Gevanni is going nowhere."

"Good, good," remarked Aiber as if he'd gotten his way after all. "Halle, my dear! I trust you wouldn't mind tailing our beloved suspect in Gevanni's place?"

_Beloved suspect, my foot._

Halle sighed. Her haystack hair and baggy eyes suggested that the emergency meeting hadn't come at a convenient time. Nevertheless, she answered with a punctual and resolute, "I'd be glad to help, sir."

"Ah! Good. Now then, what shall we do? Shall we have you follow discreetly after our two lovely suspects, or shall we make a ruckus the likes of which Tokyo has never seen?"

Raito really hated the way Aiber suddenly exploded into a fit of obvious accusation. At the very least, he could've been discreet about it. If he heard the word 'suspect' being substituted for his name ever again, he was going to kill someone.

"Sadly, my forte isn't stealth," Halle interrupted factually.

"Ah, a ruckus it is, then," the blonde man decided before turning his attention to Wedy. "I had hoped you would agree to send Gevanni. He's very good at going unseen."

"Of course," scoffed Wedy.

Aiber beseeched her with glittering eyes.

"No," said Wedy.

"Damn," said Aiber.

Raito almost felt insulted.

It was an _act._

He'd gotten the notion before, but his suspicions grew stronger than ever after watching this debacle of a dispute. They weren't angry at one another. They weren't disagreeing on anything.

They had both reached the agreement that Gevanni wouldn't tail Raito, and they were fine with it. They had simultaneously decided, through some undetectable form of implication, that they were going to agree on something and then throw a fit about it.

Why?

Were they trying to distract Raito?

No team of ace detectives could possibly argue so much and maintain their legendary status, so they must've been planning something under the pretense of a debate.

…They were going to send Gevanni as well.

Yes, that was it. They intended to fool Raito. They wanted him to think he was being observed by only one person (the female of the two, making him more likely to underestimate her abilities), when he was being scrutinized by Gevanni as well.

Good Lord.

That was simple.

Now Raito had only to discover what Aiber meant by the word 'ruckus.'

----

So _that _was what Aiber meant by the word 'ruckus.'

Honestly, L didn't like it.

No matter how many legions of armored, helmeted, faceless riot police Aiber and Wedy sent in, they could never hope to defeat Misa. It was a fact of life. No number of mere human beings could possibly apprehend a deity.

…Right?

And yet, it was odd for such a powerful being to offer assistance to an enemy. If Raito was her enemy, and indeed he was, Misa was better off killing him.

Perhaps she couldn't kill him. Maybe there was a rule written in some dingy, nondescript volume at the bottom of His Divine Basement that prevented Misa from killing Kira.

But she had a shinigami with her. If Misa couldn't kill Raito, the shinigami would.

Then why on earth wasn't he dead yet? L twisted his fingers around his sleeves. This train of thought was giving him nothing but a headache. Misa had Raito and L both ensnared in a web of confusion. She forced Raito into Aiber and Wedy's merciless claws and both her motives and her abilities remained unclear.

L kept his wits about him, however. In the next half hour, Raito would be surrounded by evil, and he would learn from it. He always learned from it. Raito would swagger through Minato-ku like he owned it, sweep Misa off her feet, and then…

Then what?

Raito had a choice to make. Either he was on Misa's side or he was on A and W's side. Normally, this wouldn't be a difficult decision for him to make. This time was different, however. Raito would display his allegiances publicly, either opposing the world's most powerful detectives or the universe's most common and present evil.

He did not know the extent of A and W's power, and neither did he understand Misa's. He did not know the detectives' intentions, and Misa's remained a mystery. His only advantage was that he was familiar enough with A and W to predict their reactions to his actions. If Raito allowed them to capture Misa, they would still suspect him. If Raito joined up with Misa, however, they would condemn him.

Cue the riot police.

The situation was a setup. A and W certainly wanted to capture Misa, but it wasn't their primary goal. They wished to corner Kira and force him to take a side. In the case that Raito defended Misa from the encroaching mob, Halle and Gevanni (for L had decided that Gevanni was most _definitely_ observing the altercation in secret) would evaluate the means by which Kira killed his victims.

But only if they could.

A and W had undoubtedly concluded that Kira needed a face and a name to kill. In Raito's case, he needed only a face, but A and W did not afford him that luxury. Capture be damned, they weren't allowing Kira to kill any more innocent people. In all actuality, though, allowing facemasks and full body armor was probably the only way the detectives could get the police to cooperate. In conclusion, Raito could not kill the riot police, and neither could Misa's shinigami.

Cue Halle Lidner.

A and W needed only one observer, and that observer was Gevanni. He would be safely hidden, completely invulnerable and undetectable for the time being. Halle, however, was a sitting duck in more ways than one. Firstly, A and W had so vehemently pounded into Raito's mind that Halle would be watching. Secondly, she would probably be visible. Halle would lead the mob to the tower and personally announce that Misa was being arrested.

If Halle died, Misa was the second Kira indeed.

But how could A and W kill two birds with one stone? How could they condemn Raito in the same evening?

Cue Gevanni.

A and W's recent argument was not an attempt to keep Gevanni's company a secret. It was an ingeniously disguised trick to disclose it to Raito. A and W were trying to trick Raito into thinking that they _didn't_ want him to know that Gevanni was following him.

Gevanni would be poorly disguised under a visored helmet, much like the ones worn by the police mob. Since A and W had so sneakily disclosed Gevanni's participation in the event, Raito would recognize him instantly, aided by the clothes the CIA man wore or by his voice. Gevanni would slap a blindfold and a pair of handcuffs on Misa. Perhaps he would even threaten to execute her on the spot.

The true Kira would fly into action.

Gevanni would suffer a sudden, instantaneous heart attack. A and W would assume that Misa's eyes never once fell on his face. Who killed Gevanni, then?

Raito.

The second Kira could kill with only a face, so why not the original? Gevanni's identity had been kept under lock and key for the duration of his stay in Tokyo. He never left headquarters, except under multiple layers of disguise, and his true name was unknown to anyone but himself.

Raito had seen his face too many times, and Misa had never seen it at all.

Gevanni was dead.

Raito was Kira.

The case was closed.

L had an immense amount of confidence invested in Raito, however. Raito had a mind to think with, and he was well-versed in its use. The brunette would play his part in the drama that ensued, and he would emerge victorious with a regal bow and a standing ovation from his audience. He would slip straight through A and W's traps. He always did.

The proverbial fox always outsmarted his pursuers. Such was the way of the world, wasn't it?

L reclined somewhat stiffly in his office chair and spun himself in circles. Since A and W refused to allow his participation in Raito's crusade and simply because Misa hadn't invited him along anyway, L festered in Aiber's office like a gloomy rash of mildew. The ever-exuberant blonde man who owned the office disliked L's sullen mood, and he bounced through the door several times per hour in order to convince the ex-mini-death that he was not alone in his anxiety.

And yet L was alone.

So very alone.

He had brought this solitude upon himself, of course, because there was no way in hell or any other realm that L was allowing Raito to leap into danger without dragging Matt with him. In spite of multiple protests on Matt's part, L eventually persuaded the mini-death to shadow Raito by brandishing the pointy end of a threat. If Matt did not accompany Kira, Kira would die, and Kira's closet full of Kira's video games would vanish as well.

Where was he?

Ah yes.

Being alone.

So very alone.

----

Matt continued to console Raito for the duration of his quest to the Tokyo Tower. The brunette mini-death seemed intent on proving to Raito that he was not alone.

And yet he was alone.

So very alone.

To say that Raito was alone was not to say that he was helpless, however. Being Kira was a solitary and demanding job, and Raito knew how to take care of himself.

Drearily, he glanced over his shoulder. In five seconds, he located Halle. She followed at the respectable distance of one city block. She could take her time. She knew where Raito was headed.

Meanwhile, Matt chattered to himself about how much he didn't want to appear in front of Her Unholiness. Raito didn't see a problem. Matt was a mini-death, and therefore invisible to anyone's eyes but Kira's.

Then again, Misa was not human.

Whatever.

Raito was really past caring at this point.

He was galloping off into the sunset of his life. Raito got the feeling that his time was at an end. Even if it wasn't, it would get much, much more complicated from there on out. Two overwhelming forces were about to collide, only one of which would walk away intact.

Raito put his money on A and W.

Why?

Because Misa couldn't kill him.

That was why.

Raito had done some intense thinking about Misa's power and her sphere of influence before coming to the startling conclusion that both were infinitesimally small. Misa wasn't letting Raito live because she felt like it. She wasn't snuggling up to him because she wanted to play around with him. She didn't befriend him because she wanted to.

She did it because she had to.

Raito had been led to believe that he was the bane of Misa and her shinigami. They tried so vehemently to kill him during the first, awkward days of his Kira-dom, but then the attempts on his life simply vanished. The shinigamis' initial killing intent proved to Raito that Misa really wanted him dead.

But he wasn't dead!

For some mind-boggling reason that Raito couldn't possibly understand, Misa _could not kill him_. She and her shinigami possessed no weapons in their great, divine arsenal that could touch him.

Raito knew this, and yet he could not understand.

Before, the shinigami were plotting to assassinate him. A tense silence ensued after that, in which no attempts were made on his life at all. Now, Misa had developed a sudden crush on him. She wanted to get close to Raito, but why?

Did she want to kill him by other means than a death note?

Did she honestly have a crush on him?

…_Was she trying to gain his favor…_

…_so that he wouldn't…_

…_kill her instead?_

…

Oh.

Oh boy.

But Raito couldn't kill her, could he? As much as he hated to admit it, he _was_ only human. Misa was… Misa. She was Queen Lucy. She was the Fallen Angel, Lilith, and the serpent in the Tree of Knowledge. Raito couldn't kill her. He couldn't possibly have that much power.

_And yet he needed only a face to kill._

…Perhaps Kira's true strength wasn't the speed with which he could kill.

Perhaps the Shinigami weren't burdened with two conditions, a face and a name, for the sake of being specific. Perhaps Misa set these limits to preserve her own life. Evil went by many names, after all, as 'Queen Lucy' explained. She called herself Misa, but she had no name.

Perhaps this was Ryuzaki's power, too. Before he became human, he was _in_human. He had never been born. He just _existed_. No higher power gave him a name to respond to, so, like Misa, he invented one.

Now he was human.

He had a name.

Raito had been led to believe that this name was 'Ryuzaki,' but perhaps the ex-mini-death had another special one picked out.

Maybe he didn't get to choose it.

_Could Raito have killed Ryuzaki?_

…_Could he kill Matt?_

…Well, if Misa couldn't kill Raito, then he had no more need for a supernatural bodyguard. Matt was the perfect test subject.

Raito carefully eyed the brunette mini-death. Matt hovered erratically beside him, muttering something about cigarettes and remaining blissfully unaware that he was being scrutinized so carefully.

In killing Matt, Raito had nothing to fear. Matt had been dead once, and here he was. Sure, Matt might resent Raito for killing him, but…

No.

Raito wasn't killing Matt. All of the sudden, it didn't seem right.

Raito rounded his last corner for a straight shot at Foot Town. Misa would probably be on the first floor.

Speak of the Devil, and Raito's phone rang. He slid it out of his coat pocket. Raito had one new text message, and guess who it was from.

_I see you, Raito-chan!_

Misa.

Raito quirked an eyebrow. Either shinigami eyes had amazing vision, or she had a pair of binoculars.

…And she was high up.

Immediately, Raito texted her back.

_Where are you?_

Two seconds after he sent his message, Misa replied.

_Up in the observatory, silly!_

_Which one? _Raito asked.

_The first one!_

…Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Raito commended her. From the main observatory, she could pick off any adversaries she saw. If Misa was able to see Raito from this distance, she could kill anything.

Also, she would never be able to escape.

It was a win-win situation for a two-faced double-agent like Raito Yagami.

He couldn't look too overjoyed, though. Halle was watching and so was Misa. Raito needed to keep a straight face until he was well in the shadow of the Tokyo Tower's Foot Town. He would wait until he was out of Misa's line of vision, and then he would frantically contact Aiber and Wedy because now Misa was incredibly difficult to get to.

Once the two observatories of Tokyo Tower vanished from his view, Raito tapped his belt buckle twice. His phone rang immediately.

"Is something wrong, Yagami-kun?" Wedy hissed with her sharp, icy blizzard of a voice.

"She's in the main observatory," Raito growled. "This is a trap."

"Relax, Yagami-kun. How is it a trap?" she sighed boredly.

"You won't be able to apprehend her with the blitzkrieg of riot police you're sending in," Raito reasoned in faux-frustration.

"There is a plan B, Yagami-kun," Wedy remarked. "Aiber and I are prepared for any situation. Do not underestimate our intelligence, if you please."

Oh, that woman made his blood boil…

"May I speak with Aiber?" Raito tacked on a "please?" as an afterthought.

He heard the creaking of her eyes as they rolled in their sockets. "Of course," she deadpanned. "Please hold."

"I don't have time to-"

"Heeeeeeelllllo?"

"Thank God it's you," Raito droned.

"Is it?" Aiber's refreshingly manly voice reflected. "Well, how about that?"

"She put me on hold," Raito grumbled resentfully.

"Oh, you poor baby," said Aiber.

"Listen, Misa is all the way up in-"

"Yes, yes, so I heard."

"So you _what?_"

"I heard."

"Then Wedy is…?"

"Two office chairs away." Aiber's voice then took on a faded, echoing quality as he leaned away from the phone and called, "Hello, darling!" into the room.

He really did.

Raito couldn't make this shit up.

Chuckling, Aiber returned his attention to the phone. "What else can I help you with?"

Raito chose that particular moment to have the most spectacular mental breakdown of his life.

"I just… I don't…" Raito stage-fought with his words. He heaved a shaky sigh and ran his free hand through his hair for good effect. "What… where's… I need to talk to my dad."

"Your father is biting his nails to shreds next door. Why interrupt him?"

"I think I'm going to die."

Aiber's voice softened into a more mature, paternal rumble. "Really, now?"

"Yes. I'm going to be a hundred feet up with a serial killer and nowhere to run to. I wish I didn't have to do this by myself, but…" Raito breathed a quivering sigh, "…I have to. I need to."

Aiber's voice smiled through the speaker. "Well, Raito-kun, I'm a detective, not a cheerleader. I won't give you a pep-talk unless I believe you have a one hundred percent chance of success, and I don't. You may very well die, but it is my duty to keep that from happening for as long as I can. I always do my job well. Right, Yagami-kun?"

"You're useless," Raito sighed appreciatively.

"_Right_, Yagami-kun?" If Aiber's voice had an elbow, it would be nudging him persuasively in the side.

Raito sighed and lightened his voice a little. "Right."

"Ah, Yagami-kun! I have yet to meet anyone who agrees with me as much as you do." Aiber sang jovially. "Please, do not worry. As Wedy said, we always have a plan of action. Contact the second Kira and we'll do the rest."

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, there you go, agreeing with me again. You're such a delightful person, you know?"

"Yes, sir."

"What a yes-man you are."

"Yes, sir."

"Will there be anything else, Yagami-kun?"

"…Aiber," Raito sighed, gripped in the sudden, cold throes of inspiration. Perhaps he was wrong and Misa could kill him. Maybe Aiber was actually planning to accidentally assassinate him and get it over with. The possibility was small and Raito didn't care too much about it, but he continued, "If I _do_ die, please let Ryuga-kun go." He waited for any reaction from Aiber. When Raito was rewarded with only a patient, poignant silence, he elaborated. "I got him into this mess. If it weren't for me, he'd…"

"He'd still be sleeping in libraries, blissfully unaware of the catastrophe surrounding him?"

"Something like that."

"Oh, Yagami-kun, you make me sound like a slave trader. Your friend isn't in captivity. I haven't arrested him."

"I want you to leave him alone," Raito clarified.

"Ah. Now that is a different matter. Nevertheless, I will honor your wishes. If you die, I release Ryuga-kun from my slimy clutches, no strings attached. He will be able to depart this building and the industry of investigation altogether."

"You won't hold any grudges against him for being… associated with a suspect?"

"No."

Raito breathed a sigh of true relief. "All right."

"Good. Now that that's settled, onward, Yagami-kun!"

"Onward," Raito agreed weakly. He hung up and lingered like a ghost at the titanic base of the Tokyo Tower.

"Well," Matt puffed beside him, "Let's get this over with."

Raito paused and hesitated. Ryuzaki would dislike him immensely for it later, but he felt confident enough to send Matt packing. He was pulled under by the riptide of his curiosity. Raito was overcome with a sick, twisted inquisitiveness that was so powerful, it made him feel madly invincible. He needed to discover whether his hunch was right or not.

Raito had just enough nerve and insane courage to test her.

Raito could kill with only a face, and Misa couldn't kill him, but…

She could get Ryuzaki. Raito knew that she would use Ryuzaki to manipulate him. By sending Matt back to Ryuzaki, Raito gave his ex-mini-death a chance.

_His_ ex-mini-death.

Raito would not allow Misa to delve into her bag of dirty tricks.

"Matt," Raito directly addressed the mini-death.

Matt tilted his head and studied Raito through his thick-rimmed glasses. "What?"

"Get back to Ryuzaki," demanded Raito.

"Back to L?" Matt gawped. An overjoyed, relieved grin flowered across his lips and he rocked onto his toes. "You'd let me leave? Seriously?"

"Go ahead."

Ryuzaki needed him more than Raito did.

"Aww, sweet!" Matt punched the air. "I owe you one, man. Thanks!"

"Just make sure nothing happens to him," Raito deadpanned.

Matt's eyebrows rose. He made no objection, though. Raito watched as the mini-death filed his veiled threat away in the more important section of his brain before nodding quietly to himself. "Will do," he announced. "See ya."

With that, Matt literally vanished into thin air.

----

When Aiber popped into L's gloomy lair for the fourteenth time that day and announced that he had good news, L wouldn't believe him, and L would be right to do so. "If Yagami-kun dies, we harbor no grudge against you and allow you to go wherever you like!"

A lie.

A good lie, but a lie. An untruth to keep Raito's mind at ease. L didn't mind, really, about being 'set free.'

He minded Raito's suspicion that he was going to die. Raito was most certainly _not_ going to die.

"Raito is going to die?" L asked out of suspicion.

"One would hope not," mused Aiber from his spot in the doorframe, "But in the case that he does, he has made one final request, which I have granted, and that is for you to be left alone."

L would've responded snidely, but Aiber's introspective silence suggested that he had more to say.

"You know, I wanted to investigate you as well," Aiber shattered the peace. He paced into the room as if his mind was heavy with thought. "I've suspected Yagami-kun from the moment his father mentioned him to me. Oh, he was always so proud of his son's ability to think and perform well without study or practice. Yagami-kun had an innate genius about him, his father said."

Aiber perched on his desk like a ponderous falcon and observed L through his intelligent, raptor eyes. "I believe you possess that same innate genius. You are the Yin to Yagami-kun's Yang. You are quiet, thoughtful, and you prefer to observe the things around you, while Raito is a proud man of action."

L narrowed his eyes slightly. Where was Aiber planning to drag him with this nonsensical ego-bolstering? He could find no shadow of malice in Aiber's eyes, but a strange, unidentifiable, eerie fire. L watched closely as the blonde man lounged on his desk like a fat cat on a divan. He was so perfectly composed and confident, that L felt his own confidence gravitate away from him and become swallowed up in Aiber's self-assured orbit.

The blonde man took a moment to withdraw into the confines of his mind and reminisce. His smile broadened softly and he coiled a wisp of hair around his finger. "Hmm," he hummed, "Polar opposites can make the best partners, don't you think, Ryuga-kun? You and Yagami-kun remind me of Wedy and I. You collaborate effortlessly, you're the closest of companions, and above all, you can understand each other."

Aiber's eyes narrowed suddenly.

"But there comes a point when I grow tired of being equal with Wedy. Sometimes I wish I were alone at the top."

L tensed in his chair. He felt a claustrophobic glacier crystallize in his chest. Something about Aiber was changing.

No, he wasn't changing. He was discarding the layers of his comfortable, human disguise one by one, allowing L to adjust to the ugly monster he truly was.

"It is a pleasant loneliness, being so high up that no one can touch you," Aiber said with a nostalgic smile. "No one to bicker or disagree with you, no one to get in the way of your plans, no one to obstruct the wonderful view of all of the people you've surpassed… Ha. Competition. There is only competition between Wedy and me now. We allowed our camaraderie to go on so long, that we got sick of ourselves. The only thing that can release us from this Chinese handcuff is…" Aiber's smile twisted into a mockingly serene grin and he rested his chin in the palm of his hand. "…Well, you already know that."

_Death_.

L seized up at the sudden, diabolical reflection in Aiber's eye. The blonde man grinned like a wolf.

"Wouldn't it be nice if he died?"

L took a breath and held it, because he knew he wasn't getting another one for a while. Aiber was… what was he suggesting? Was he trying to persuade L to kill Raito? Why? _How?_ Did he think L was Kira?

"Think of how easy you'd have it." Aiber spoke in waves of his fingers and arcs of his arms. "I'd let you off the hook, suspicions be damned. You would have no more intellectual competition. No one to argue with, no one to question your authority… Ah, wouldn't it be refreshing, Ryuzaki Lawliet-kun?"

_Ryuzaki…_

…_Lawliet…_

…_kun?_

Ryuzaki. Ryuzaki. Ryuzaki, Ryuzaki, Ryuzaki, Ryuzaki Ryuzaki RyuzakiRyuzakiRyuzakiryuzakiryuzaki-

Aiber's grin twisted into a toothy sneer and his eyebrows dropped low on his forehead. The blonde man hopped off of his desk with the grace and killing intent of a cheetah. As the mighty predator descended on L, his diabolical eye glowed again and L realized too late the futility of his actions.

"My name is Hideki Ryuga," L deadpanned.

_That eye…_

_It couldn't be…_

Aiber smirked.

"That's not what I see."

----

"Oh Raito-kun! Raito-kun!" Misa bounced joyfully. "I'm so glad you could make it!"

Misa's outward appearance calmed Raito somewhat. He refused to believe that something so cute and small could be so powerful. This reinforced his suspicion that Misa actually _wasn't_ so powerful.

He knew what Ryuzaki would say. He'd call Raito overconfident and self-righteous. He would insist that Raito was wrong, and Raito could understand that. Ryuzaki worried about him.

Frankly, Raito worried more about Ryuzaki.

He tried to clear the worry from his mind as he stood with a demon behind the giant glass windows of the observatory. Misa wrapped her arms affectionately around his and hung at his side like a wet feather boa.

"Isn't it so romantic, Raito-kun? Don't you love watching the sunset?"

Not anymore.

"Yes, Misa. It's beautiful," Raito lied.

Misa sighed delightedly to herself and nudged her white shinigami in the side as if no one else was watching. "See? Isn't Raito-kun the perfect man, Rem?"

Raito studied Rem from the corner of his eye. He could tell by her dark, lilting voice that she was a woman, and he didn't quite know how to deal with that.

Like most women, she was an enigma to Raito.

Everything about Rem was frosty and clammy. She dismissed his presence with a cold shoulder and an eye he could never meet. Her hair glimmered like a bleached sea anemone and she reminded Raito of a predatory fish. She had the scales, spines, teeth, eyes, and temper of a poisonous, slimy coelacanth.

Raito did not like her.

"Misa, it is not wise to associate with such a despicable human being," Rem replied.

Raito brushed her insult from his shoulder like a fallen crumb of plaster. Behind that slur was a warning, and in that warning was fear. Rem disliked Raito almost as much as Raito disliked her, and that dislike sprang from concern for her master.

"Rem!" Misa puffed her cheek out and jabbed her knuckles into her hips. "Why do you have to be so _mean_ to my Raito-waito-chan?"

"Misa," Raito interrupted with a soft, apologetic smile, "People are watching. You don't want that, do you? I mean, I'd rather feel _alone_, just you and me."

Misa's pigtails whipped through the air as she whirled around in a sparkly cyclone. "You mean it, Raito-kun?"

"Yes, I do," Raito smiled.

Misa squealed with joy. With a sudden, fiery determination, she turned to him with her hands balled into fists. "We should go to the special observatory! Then there won't be so many people and the sunset will be so beautiful!"

"Yes, let's," Raito concurred with his polite smile still in place. He'd have to buy another elevator ticket, but escaping the crowd was worth it. He and Misa, followed closely by Rem, bought their tickets and traveled to the highest observatory in the Tokyo Tower. Raito was surprised by how empty the little, round room was beyond the elevator doors.

The small room was unusually empty for this time of day, and Raito would soon learn that Misa desired to keep it that way. Cutely, she addressed Rem. "Rem-chaaan! Could you please empty the room for Raito and me?"

Raito swore he saw a ravenous flare light up her face. Rem silently obeyed. She took out her death note, scribbled something down, and all six people filed into the elevator at the same time.

Marvelous.

Morbidly, Raito wondered how they'd all die.

"The elevator will malfunction for thirty minutes," Rem informed them.

Half an hour alone with Misa.

Oh boy.

"Oh, Raito-kun," Misa charged into his thoughts with a boisterous, feminine sigh, "I'm so glad we can finally spend some time together!"

Finally? Raito had only been 'dating' her for a day, but perhaps Misa had been dating _him_ for much longer.

After her outburst, Misa seized Raito in the affectionate ring of her arms. She kept unusually quiet, but in an entirely innocent, delighted sort of way. During Misa's display of burning love, Rem seemed to occupy half of the room. Her frigid, stiff presence seeped through Raito's skin and chilled him into half-gratitude for Misa's body heat. Raito found it difficult to believe that such violently clashing personalities could exist in peace with one another.

For five minutes, Misa clung to him in moonstruck awe. Raito disliked the amount of progress he wasn't making, so he cautiously broke the silence.

"Misa, did you really bring me here just to watch the sunset?"

Misa's eyes suddenly shot open and she stretched her neck against Raito's chest. She pouted at him like a five-year-old. "You don't want to watch the sunset, Raito-kun?"

"No, no, I'd love to watch it with you, it's just…"

Well?

Was he going to tell her about A and W's plan? If he told her, he'd gain her favor. While Raito still suspected Misa of being less powerful than he, perhaps she had some other tricks up her sleeve. Making an ally of her at the last minute wasn't going to raise A and W's suspicion that he was Kira. They wouldn't know. If he didn't tell her, he'd hurl himself onto Misa's bad side and consequentially drag Ryuzaki with him. Raito could care less if he was on Misa's bad side, but he would not endanger Ryuzaki's life.

Ever.

This decision to keep Ryuzaki out of Misa's mind sparked another argument in Raito's head. Would he dare Misa to kill him as he had planned on doing?

No.

Doing so would be a challenge to her authority. She would retaliate by making an example of Ryuzaki.

Raito would stay on her good side. With that decision, he spilled Aiber and Wedy's metaphorical beans all over the carpet.

"A and W are coming to kill you," Raito warned.

Rem suddenly squared her shoulders and lunged. Her cold, clammy claws latched around Raito's neck. A wave of panic struck Raito as she dragged him backward, but he calmed the rapid beating of his heart and swallowed his dismay around Rem's crushing fingers.

Misa refused to let go of Raito's arm. She glared at the white shinigami. "Rem! Put Raito-kun down!" she complained, punctuating her words with angry stomps of her thick heels.

"He has betrayed you, Misa!" Rem objected, curling her fingertips into Raito's skin. "No Kira deserves to be trusted. If he is telling the truth, I will kill him myself."

Raito made the best 'help me' face he could manage.

Moved by his agony, Misa beseeched Rem to release her beloved mortal. "Rem! If he was a traitor, he wouldn't have told us! He would've just let them kill me instead!"

Raito waited in crowded, asphyxiated silence as Rem contemplated her words. With a hateful growl, the female shinigami suddenly shoved him to the floor. As Raito coughed to clear the tightness in his throat, Rem stalked off to brood at a different window.

Misa thrust herself at Raito with such vigorous affection that Raito suddenly wished he was back in Rem's less oppressive grip. "Oh, Raito-kun," she bawled, "Are you all right? Did Rem hurt you?"

"I'm fine," Raito croaked and attempted to push himself out of his kneel.

"Misa, if he is telling the truth, what shall we do?" Rem asked gravely as she stared into the Tokyo skyline.

Misa smiled as if all was right and good in the world. She tilted her head cutely and squeaked, "Well, we'll just go back home."

…_Go back home?_

"What do you mean?" Raito asked urgently.

"Back to hell, silly!" Misa gave him a fond noogie.

She could go back? Just like that? Raito nearly slapped his forehead in frustration. Of course she could. She came to Earth of her own volition, and she could leave it just as easily.

"So you can leave?" Raito asked in earnest relief.

"Yep. It's easy," Misa grinned.

Raito sighed, faking the deepest amount of happiness he'd ever faked. "That's good," he smiled softly. "You'll make it out alive, at least."

Misa's glowing smile shrank into a concerned, wilting bow. "What do you mean 'at least?'"

Bingo.

"It… it's nothing, Misa. They'll be here soon. Just go."

"… Are they after you, too, Raito-kun?" Misa gasped. Big, glittering, wet diamonds welled up in the corners of her eyes.

Raito smiled sadly. "It's okay, Misa."

"Raito-kun!" Misa shrieked and threw her arms around his shoulders. She sobbed and shook her head against his chest. "Nu-uh, Raito-kun! It's not okay! Those stupid detectives can't take my Raito-kun!"

"Misa…"

"I can take you with me," Misa announced suddenly. She raised her glittering eyes and rested her forehead against Raito's. Triumphantly, she smiled. "We can go to hell together!"

Great.

Raito widened his eyes in astonishment. "But Misa… can you do that?"

"Duh!" she flicked a lock of hair snobbishly over her shoulder.

"Then… you would…"

"Yay! Raito-kun gets to go home with Misa-Misa!" the blonde devil rejoiced.

Raito faked his overwhelming excitement. He smiled ecstatically with Misa and pulled her into a tight hug. "Thank you, Misa, but…"

Misa pulled away and frowned. "But what?"

Raito couldn't leave Ryuzaki behind.

How to put it, how to put it… If Raito begged to take Ryuzaki along, would Misa get suspicious? If Ryuk had been filling her in on Raito's personal life, then she would already know the depth of Raito's care for Ryuzaki.

Would Raito endanger Ryuzaki at the very mention of his name? Maybe it was better if he left the ex-mini-death in the care of A and W…

No.

Absolutely not.

Leaving Ryuzaki with Aiber and Wedy was like leaving a lamb in a lion's den. If Raito and Misa magically disappeared, A and W would have no one left to blame but Ryuzaki. They had two courses of action. Either they could pin Raito's 'Kira' label on Ryuzaki instead, or they could hold him hostage until their original suspect showed up again.

Raito trusted Matt to take care of Ryuzaki, but against A and W and their army of riot police, special agents, and investigators, each having at least one gun in their arsenal, he stood no chance. He couldn't take the chance. Ryuzaki was much too important to him.

Raito loved him.

He would not leave him.

"Misa," Raito sighed and gazed sincerely into her wide, sparkling eyes. "I… I know I shouldn't ask, and I don't want to put you through more trouble than I've already done, but I have to ask. There is a friend of mine back at A and W's headquarters, and he's being investigated, too. It's all my fault. If I leave him…" Raito pulled Misa into a warm hug. "A and W will kill him. I don't want to lose my friend. It would make me very sad."

"But Raito-kun will be with Misa!" Misa crooned. "Doesn't that make you happy enough?"

Oh boy.

"Yes, it makes me very happy, Misa, but I wouldn't be able to live the rest of my life knowing that I abandoned someone." That ought to strike her feminine 'commitment' side. "I don't want my guilt getting in the way of our happiness."

Misa ogled him mistrustfully.

Rem announced that she saw a large number of flashing lights flooding the farther streets. Raito knew he had very little time to convince Misa, so he pulled his ace out of his sleeve. He knew that no less-than-holy being like Misa would cast his words aside.

"Please, Misa. I'll be forever in your debt."

The demon in Misa's eyes bore its twisted smile.

Debt.

Misa wanted it. For what, Raito didn't know. Did she want him to kill someone for her? Did she want to use his debt to buy her life further down the line? Again, Raito didn't know, but her cheery, excited, "Okay!" was all he needed to hear.

As Misa crushed him in another adoring embrace, Raito's accomplishments soothed the burning in his soul. He knew not what awaited him outside his own world, but he was willing to brave it if Misa stuck to her promise. At the mercy of Ryuzaki's critical eye and the sharp end of his wit, the inferno had no chance.

Raito and Ryuzaki were going to hell, and they were going together.

----

Chibi Misa: YEY!

Chibi Raito: YEY!

Chibi L: -still at crazy!Aiber's mercy- NO!

Chibi Matt: Where am I?

Me: You've arrived at the end of a particularly** epic** chapter of Death and His Shadow, and you survived! Hallelujah for you! Kudos and Snickers and cyber cookies for you!

Chibi L: We do enjoy your feedback. Please let us know how **epic** you would like your next chapter to be, and inform us of how **epic **or** un-epic** you think we're doing so far.

Chibi Misa: How's our driving? Call 1-800-I HEART U. Or simply review, because that's easier and you're all lazy.

Chibi Matt: What's wrong with being lazy?

Me: Nothing, if you review.

Chibi Misa: EHMIGAWD REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW!


	22. Meanwhile, in Hell

**DS**

**Disclaimer: **Shoutout to Flip a Coin and xxxyuniexxx! You guessed who doesn't own Death Note! For all you slackers, the answer was… ME!

Chibi L: Ahem.

Chibi Misa: So after more than a month, probably, here we are again. You must pardon our Swirly-swirl. She has just discovered that her calling in life lies in bioengineering and the manipulation of animal genes.

Me: …Yeah.

Chibi Raito: So while she tries and fails to execute her master plan for getting into Stanford, please, enjoy the byproducts of her raging stress and teenage problems.

Me: …and stuff.

Chibi Matt: Uni is for sissies.

Chibi Raito: FalcAAAWWWNNNN PAAAUUUNCH!!!!!111

Matt: -dedzorz-

Chibi Misa: Have fun! Read, review, and relax.

**D S 2 2**

L was in the middle of a calm, serene panic attack. That intelligent gleam in Aiber's eye was unnatural and inhuman. It was only when Aiber announced L's full name that the mini-death recognized him for what he truly was.

An Anti-Kira.

The eye suddenly seemed to bloat out of its socket. A layer of milky, dead glaze enshrouded Aiber's red, ringed iris. It slid and glided like a slimy fish beneath the pink shell of his eyelid.

L had never found a shinigami's eye more disgusting.

He also recognized that this supernatural, glossy gleam existed in only one eye. Where was the other one?

Wedy.

What devious demons these two had revealed themselves to be. They had doubled their strength and their numbers by sharing the eyes of the shinigami. Both of them probably had Raito and L pinned from the beginning. Why hadn't A and W arrested them, then?

True, their shinigami eyes couldn't discern a Kira from a normal human being, but they could definitely discern a lie from a truth. Why hadn't they arrested L for lying about his name? What was more, A and W would definitely recognize L's name as that of Raito's past hallucination. Why not arrest him for being a suspicious and supernatural occurrence?

They were working with Misa to destroy Raito.

They were never investigating the second Kira at all. Misa knew all about Raito and L's participation in the Kira case because Aiber and Wedy leaked the information to her. If this was true, then they shared other personal information with her as well. Misa knew all about their relationships, past and present. She knew that L loved Raito. She knew that Raito cared for L.

Now, L was a liability.

If Raito did not accomplish Misa's desires, she would threaten L. She would force Raito into her service by juggling with the mini-death's life, and if she found him to be a nuisance, she would kill him.

L sat in his chair, watching helplessly as a feral, feline Aiber stalked toward him.

Then, something flew out of the wall, rocketed into L, and bowled both the mortified mini-death and the recently shocked Aiber into the hallway. L tumbled on the cage of his rigid arms and legs and the knobs of his spine. His ribs creaked as he smashed into Aiber's body and rebounded slowly across the vinyl tiles.

Coughing and wheezing from the shock of the sudden intervention, L lay on the floor in a crumpled ball. He pushed himself on trembling arms off of the tiles and wondered irately what schizophrenic force of nature had nearly given him a heart attack. As he wondered, he noticed that Aiber's short acquaintance with the wall had saved L from serious injury and also knocked the Anti-Kira out cold.

"Hooooly shit, holy shit, holy shit holy shit holy shit shit _shit_, did you see that, L? Did you see it did you see it did you see it see it see see oh, did you see it did you see OH MY _GOOOODDDD._"

Startled, L somersaulted into a crouching position and stared.

There he was, jumping up and down like a pre-teen girl, biting his nails, teetering on the border between anxiety and tearful hysteria, and for the first time, L was genuinely glad to see him.

Matt.

"I was listening through the wall and I heard him say some weird crap and then I saw his eyes and he was going to, like, kill you, or something so I said 'Oh, my god, I have to help' so I jumped in and I was like 'FALCAAWWWN PAAAAUUUNNNCH' and you were like, 'Oof!' and he was like, 'Oof!' and then he hit his head and you said 'Oof!' again and you rolled away and he stopped moving and are you _okaaayyyy, maaaaannnn_?"

"Yes," said L.

"Good," sighed Matt, deflating as quickly as a balloon in a lawnmower, "because if we don't get the fuck out of here, you're dead meat."

"I know," said L.

"So let's get the fuck out of here."

"Let's."

----

Raito held a few grievances about his debt with Misa, but they all flew away like happy, golden butterflies when he saw A and W's quaint assault force. They thundered daintily through the street like a stampede of rhinoceros and broke against the monstrous base of the Tower in a tsunami of Kevlar and steel. Helpless shoppers were stranded on the shoals of decorative planters as the army of riot police swept past in rolling waves.

Hidden in a flock of bleating police cars, a man with a megaphone shouted into the streets.

Raito looked on in a sort of resigned fascination. A and W had certainly taken measures to corner their targets. He realized with a sudden pang of doubt that it would not be easy to rescue Ryuzaki amidst all of the commotion.

"Aww! Raito-kun looks so cute when he's anxious!" Misa cooed with a girlish pop of her heel. Raito willed his lips into a nervous smile. "Yeah, Misa. I just don't know how you're going to get us out of here. I mean, _look_ at them," the brunette gestured to the hill of ants below the observatory.

Misa blew a raspberry at him and flicked her wrist. "I'm magic, you dope."

Magic.

"Oh, really?" Raito asked with a playful quirk of the eyebrow.

"Yep," Misa winked. "I can teleport. Wanna' see?"

Yes. Yes, he did.

Raito laughed at Misa's antics. "Of course. Show me."

"Okay. Here goes!" Misa frowned, puffed out her cheeks, and crossed her eyes with concentration. She curled her fingers into claws and pawed at the air like a kitten. She crouched down and jumped right into Raito's face with a feral "Hoowaaaaaaah!"

Raito jumped back and stared as Misa grinned with the teeth of a Cheshire Cat. "Ta-daa!" she bowed.

"…That was it?" Raito asked, half nervous that Misa was only capable of joking around.

"Wasn't it mystical?" Misa squeaked.

"Oh, it was mystical, all right," Raito chuckled anxiously.

Suddenly, Rem interrupted. "Someone is coming up the elevator."

Raito's smile lost its altitude, but Misa's brightened all the more. "Goodie!" she exclaimed, "let them in, let them in!"

"But Misa-chan," growled Rem, "What if Raito was telling the truth?"

"Of course he was telling the truth, silly!" Misa pouted with her hands on her hips. "If someone is coming up the elevator, then I want to talk to them before we leave!"

…Raito really couldn't understand Misa's logic. He tried. He failed.

Rem had no time to protest. The elevator dinged in celebration upon reaching its destination. The white shinigami arranged herself between Misa and the door. The blonde girl latched lackadaisically onto Raito's arm and giggled into the fabric of his sleeve.

A figure dressed in black from head to foot slipped through the parting steel doors like a cat. Raito could tell by his height and the shape of his body that this was Gevanni. Accompanying him were three armored guards, all nondescript in every fashion.

"Kira," Gevanni growled, ironically addressing both Raito and Misa.

The blonde girl smiled expectantly and batted her long, black eyelashes.

Gevanni's entourage spread out and prowled along the windows of the observatory. Meanwhile, he stepped brazenly into the center of the room. "We have you surrounded. Surrender at once."

"Who are you arresting, exactly?" Misa asked boldly with a quizzical frown on her face.

Her blasé arrogance took Gevanni by surprise. He wracked his brain for words as Misa quirked her head childishly and tapped her heel against the floor.

"Kira and the second Kira," growled Gevanni.

"Who's the second Kira?" quizzed Misa.

"You are the second Kira," stated Gevanni.

"Who told you that?" puzzled Misa.

"Surrender."

"Why?"

"Surrender."

"You're a robot."

"Surrender."

"Say please, Robot-chan!"

"You are surrounded. Stop these childish games and surrender."

"How do you know they're not lying to you," Misa smirked suddenly, "your commanding officers?"

When Gevanni replied with "That is none of your concern," Misa marched impudently into his personal bubble and stopped only when his entourage cocked their guns at her. "How do you know they sent you here to catch us?" she giggled.

Us.

Shit.

Well, if Raito's innocence wasn't trampled, he didn't know what was. Misa had just disclosed to Gevanni that the both of them were guilty as charged. He seriously hoped that Misa's teleportation involved more than squinting and cat-claws.

"You concede that you are guilty?" Gevanni growled.

Misa continued as if she'd never heard him. "You know, _I_ think the only reason your bosses sent you here was so you could die. Maybe they don't trust you with their evil master plan, huh? I know I wouldn't trust _my_ subordinates."

Rem did not respond.

Gevanni was in the middle of threatening Misa with force when someone's radio blared with sudden urgency.

"Suspect three has escaped confinement! Traveling westbound in a red Mustang! Believed to be armed and dangerous! Requesting immediate backup!"

Misa took advantage of the confusion and grabbed Raito's hand in hers. Cackling madly, she raised her left hand into the air and snapped.

The last thing Raito felt was his soul being ripped out of his body.

Then everything went-

----

"Please drive more carefully."

"I'm running from the _frickin' police_, L!"

"Yes, I understand, but would it be too much trouble to stay on the correct side of the road?"

"Do you _want _me to wreck our ride on a spike strip?"

"Well, no."

"Then STOP COMPLAINING!"

For the most part, the streets were devoid of sirens and flashing lights. Much of Tokyo's police force was probably surrounding Prince Raito and the deceptively helpless Rapunzel in their Lofty Tower. L didn't understand what Matt was grouching about. At the very least, he could drive less conspicuously.

Speaking of the Prince and his captor, L hadn't the faintest idea of how to rescue him. As L said before, Raito was surrounded by all of the weapons in Japan. His only choice was to escape on his own and send Matt scouting once he was hidden in a safe place. As much as L would've liked to throw his arms up in the air, jump from the speeding Mustang, and choke as many people as he could with his bare hands, he couldn't let his anxiety turn to hysteria. If he was going to save Raito, he would need to keep his wits about him.

A peppering of loud popping noises exploded on the asphalt. Matt swore at the top of his lungs and shoved L's head into the dashboard. "Shit!" he roared. "They're shooting at us!"

Much to L's dismay, Matt began swerving violently through the streets, weaving between visible and invisible cars alike. He hit the curbs and rebounded like a crimson pinball. The sound of screeching tires and the misty smoke of burning rubber drowned out the barrage of gunshots.

L's hands gripped the handle of his door like a pair of pipe wrenches. He braced his forehead against the dashboard to keep himself from flying all over the cab. "Matt!" L spat once he found the breath to do so.

"What?" screeched the mini-death.

"Please drive carefully!"

"I'M AVOIDING BULLETS, L!"

"Well you don't need to drive all over the road, do you?"

"THEY'RE GOING TO POP MY TIRES AND SHOOT YOUR HEAD OFF OF YOUR SHOULDERS!"

"You'll pop your tires anyway, the way you're driving."

"FUCK IT, L!"

"Would you stop yelling?"

"I AM NOT YELLING."

"Yes, you are. Please keep calm. I'm sure that by doing so, you will be able to regain your sanity. Breathe."

"FUCK YOU."

"Breathe."

Matt breathed. Luckily, he had done so just in time to notice and avoid a potential collision with a police cruiser.

"Fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck," said Matt.

"Breathe," said L.

Matt breathed.

He gulped and stretched his palms across the worn leather arc of the steering wheel. Matt sucked a slow stream of air into his chest and released it just as carefully, tapping the tips of his fingers on the wheel and pulling the car into another gear. "I can do this," he swore like a group therapy patient. "I can do this."

"Yes, yes," L reinforced quickly.

"I'm fine. I mean, it's not like I can die, right?" Matt sighed, swerving past a furiously honking sub-compact.

"I can," L snapped.

"Well, I don't care about that. See? La la la. I'm just fine. Just fine. Fine. Just fine. I can do this."

Meanwhile, L wished fervently that his insides would stop sloshing around in the pit of his stomach like a pail of worms on a swing set. His adrenaline was taking over his body. L felt as if he would explode at any time, his hot, steaming insides bloating up and swallowing his skin like a fleshy popcorn kernel. Knives slashed up and down the center of his abdomen. Rocks leapt into his throat and back down into his heart. His toes curled up inside the starchy canvas shoes that Raito had bought for him in Harajuku.

The thrill of death coursed from the depths of L's heart to the tips of his fingernails. Fever enveloped him in its prickly, sweaty arms and howled in his ears.

Suddenly, his stomach lurched and he felt as if the icy claws of death were tearing his heart right out of his chest. An inhuman shriek cut through the air. L felt his body skidding to a stop and his soul continuing to somersault through the void with the pull of inertia.

Slowly, the spinning stopped. The numbness in L's brain dispelled like a blanket of morning mist. With a shaky hand, he retrieved his heart from the open air in which it was hanging.

"What the FUCK was THAT?" Matt shouted.

L pried his sticky eyelashes apart and peeked up from his rigid curl, wondering at the mysteries of happenstance that had so roughly fallen upon him.

There was nothing for him to see.

The cab was completely black.

----

-black.

Raito felt nothing, saw nothing, smelled nothing… Nothing. It was as if Misa had sucked him into the darkest reaches of space and he was no longer himself, but a mere collection of frozen molecules and electrical currents.

Then, light! Sound! A starburst of red exploded before Raito's eyes. On its heels followed a shockwave of reality, echoing across the corners of Raito's consciousness and pulling him back into existence.

Upon feeling a familiar flatness beneath the soles of his shoes, Raito promptly tripped forward and hit his face on it.

The pain that split his head in half reminded him that he was _indeed_ alive and well. In an attempt to salvage his face and his reputation, Raito shoved himself off of the ground before the brunt of his agony could register.

Casually, he ignored his head and observed his surroundings. He stood in a deep, dark hall. At least, Raito thought it was a hall. Little lamps hung in black emptiness to either side of the softly glowing carpet, where Raito presumed the walls to be. Exactly how deep the hall was, Raito could not tell, but the illuminated circles of red carpet and the pearl-strings of lights vanished at a thin, distant nexus that was at least a mile away.

Misa's childish giggles reached his ear.

Raito glanced over his shoulder to see Misa smiling cutely and pulling at her pigtails. She waddled over to him and latched onto his arm. "Aww, Raito-kun! Did you hurt your head?"

"A little," Raito admitted.

"Here. Lemme' kiss it and make it better," Misa crooned. She pulled him down by his arm and pressed her glossy lips against his cheek in a short, playful peck.

"All better, Raito-kun?"

"…All better," Raito half-grumbled, feeling like he should've been embarrassed.

"Misa, we should go." Rem's glossy eyes materialized from the darkness. She slipped like a wraith into the lamplight.

"Why?" pouted Misa.

"Raito's friends will be arriving soon," growled Rem.

Raito didn't understand why Rem was so intent on running from his friends, but as soon as Misa dragged him a few feet down the carpet, he saw why.

Matt's car screamed through the ceiling in a lightning bolt of chrome red. A terrified chorus of voices followed the car before the floor swallowed it up.

Raito stared in intent silence at the carpet where the Mustang had once been.

He didn't have long to wonder where the car and its occupants had gone, because the same orchestra of troubled mayhem echoed again. The floor shook as the Mustang bottomed out somewhere far within the depths of the hall.

"Where d'you think they landed, Rem?" Misa asked cutely.

"If we follow that dastardly noise, we should find out," Rem replied with a resentful squint.

Misa and company set out down the hall, listening carefully as Matt's obscenities grew in volume and frequency.

As Raito walked, he passed a large, black door. It was nearly invisible in the midst of the pervading darkness, but the light dancing on its edges gave it away.

Curiously, Raito asked, "Where are we, exactly?"

"Limbo," said Misa.

Raito eyed her skeptically. "…Really?"

"Yep," Misa squeaked with a smile. She pointed at the horizon where the lights and carpet met. "That's the reception desk, down there. It's a ways down, but you don't care much when you're dead, do you?"

Raito's stomach lurched. "Am I dead?" he asked with as much calm and poise as he could manage.

"Of course not, silly!" Misa elbowed him in the side. "If you were dead, this hallway would be a lot more crowded."

"Explain."

"Well, dead people are the only people who can see other dead people," elaborated Misa. "If you were dead, you would see people everywhere."

"I see," mumbled Raito.

"No you don't," said Misa.

"…Right," Raito agreed.

So he wasn't dead, but he couldn't see Ryuzaki anywhere. Did that mean…

"Is Ryuzaki dead, then?"

Misa blew a dismissive raspberry at him. "Naw. They just landed in the icky black parts. That's all."

Wait…

"They?" Raito quoted uncertainly.

"Yeah," Misa grinned. "Ryuzaki-chan and Matt-chan."

So she could see Matt. Raito supposed that made sense, especially considering that Matt had gone so far as to hide behind him at the sight of Misa. The blonde also used the word 'they' a few times before.

"Hm," Raito sighed with thinly-veiled arrogance. "If I can see your shinigami, then it makes sense that you can see Matt as well."

"Yeah," the blonde girl chirped.

As they walked further into the unpleasant cacophony, Rem sighted the Mustang. "There," she pointed into the darkness. Raito craned his neck around a doorframe and sure enough, there was the car, seemingly dangling in the void behind the tightly shut door.

Misa trotted happily off of the glowing carpet. Raito half-expected her to open the obstructing door and walk through it, but she simply bypassed it and marched confidently off of the edge of the world. Raito followed her cautiously. He peeked behind the doorframe, where what should meet his eyes but the opposite side of the door and nothing else. Raito really had no time to ponder. He passed it off as another life-versus-death conundrum and pussyfooted through the cold darkness, heels sweeping crisply along the invisible ground.

His comrades' voices grew louder.

"Holy fuck, L! Where the fuck are we?"

Matt.

"Would you stop swearing, please? I'd like to have a moment of silence. I think I just died."

Ryuzaki, scathing as always.

"What would a fucking moment of silence do?"

"I don't know. It just seems proper. That's all."

"Well, fuck me. What if we really are dead? Wait. I can't die! Why the fuck am I dead if I can't _fucking_ die?"

"Mmm. You're right. The fact that I'm still here with you, who cannot die, proves that I am not dead. I'm going to have a look around."

"IT'S A TRAP!"

The passenger door opened, sending a sheet of shattered glass crashing to the floor. L emerged from the Mustang, gingerly testing his footing against the crackling shards.

Raito fought the smile that stretched across his lips. Seeing Ryuzaki alive made the endless halls of Limbo seem that much shorter. This time, he was not surprised at all when a warm wave of relief washed over him.

"Ryuzaki," he called into the darkness. The ex-mini-death spun on his heel, searching furiously for the source of the voice. Raito waved and Ryuzaki's eyes immediately snapped onto him.

"Ah! Raito-kun!" he waved in a rapid, sloppy arc. "How are you? Are you well?"

"I'm fine, Ryuzaki," Raito chuckled, "but I don't think I'd still be alive if it weren't for Misa," Raito gestured with thickly-veiled urgency to the rapidly approaching blonde.

Ryuzaki's soot-ringed eyes followed the brunette's gesture. They fell on Misa, betraying none of the infernal contempt that Raito knew he was feeling. He waved just as enthusiastically at Misa.

"Ah! The famous Misa-Misa-chan!" he exclaimed. "Raito-kun never stops talking about you. I must say, you are every bit as beautiful as he described."

Misa giggled and jumped into the air.

Meanwhile…

"…Misa…Misa-chan?" croaked the Mustang.

Matt suddenly sprang from the driver's seat and scrambled for the roof of the car. "No! Not Misa-Misa-chan! _Anything_ but Misa-Misa-chan!"

"Matty-Matty-kun!" Misa squealed. She made a mad dash for the car and sprang onto the roof like a rabbit. Matt tried in vain to escape, but alas, Misa pulled him into a vicious noogie and dragged him like a python into the shattered glass, where she proceeded to constrict him to death.

----

L stood next to Raito and let relaxation seep through his toes and into his face. Though hugs and whispers were impossible at this point, L felt happy to simply look at Raito and know he was alive.

Raito's smile remained mild and serene and he never made any sort of eye contact with L, but that was Raito. He couldn't afford to show any emotions that might irk his powerful escorts. Rem had glued her serpentine eyes on them, but Misa remained airy and clueless, or as much so as she could appear. Raito would take no chances, though, and neither would L.

"Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Misa squealed. She turned to Matt, who had become something akin to a blancmange with goggles during their joyous encounter. "Don't you want to go back home, Matty-Matty-kun?"

"No…" Matt moaned like a strangled banshee.

"Come on! Let's go! Come on, Raito-kun! We're off to see the Wizard…" Misa hooked her arm in Matt's and skipped down the endless corridor. For a while, both L and Raito stood there side by side, merrily watching her shrink as she bounced away. Neither of them had long to watch before Rem practically shoved them both into a military march with her laser eye-beams of death.

Raito made small talk to make the journey less unnatural. L replied politely and made pointless banter of his own, but Rem kept her eyes on his neck and followed him like a specter.

What seemed like an eon-and-a-half later, the hall broadened, thickened, and grew immensely in height, or so the gigantic double-doors made it seem. Both appeared to be hewn out of the blackness and nothing else. The only signs of their existence were the dancing comet-tails of light around their edges and the abrupt conclusion of the hall. Here, Misa and the gelatinous Matt waited for L, Raito, and Rem.

"You guys are _sloooowwww_," Misa complained in her signature pre-teen way. She then turned around and sauntered to a screen on the wall. She buzzed herself in as 'Misa-Misa-chan' and the monstrous doors swung inward.

She dragged Matt's whining body into the dull, red room beyond the doorway. "Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Misa squealed excitedly. "Last one into the elevator is a rotten egg!"

Like a sprite, Misa flitted off with her mini-death baggage. L and Raito both followed in smiling, comfortable silence.

Rem did not smile.

Misa waved them all into a quaint little elevator and pressed the only red button on the control panel. Inertia held L up, the elevator went down, and he lost his balance. Misa cackled madly, Matt continued to complain, and Rem rolled her eyes.

But L wasn't paying any attention to that.

When L was certain that he'd fall into a humiliated heap on the floor of the elevator, Raito grabbed his arm and held him up.

A second passed, L regained his footing, and the feathery remnants of Raito's warmth faded away. The brunette cracked an airy joke at his lack of balance, to which Misa cracked another joke at Raito's own balance.

In no time, L returned to his stoic, careful self.

But Raito moved an inch closer.

When the elevator slowed to an abrupt stop, Raito's arm shot fluidly outward and wrapped around L's shoulder. He laughed and grinned and made a joke out of it, and L didn't know what to think.

Far be it from Raito Yagami to care about something as harmless as falling over.

He didn't have much time to muse, as the elevator doors drew swiftly aside.

L was then assaulted by the worst stench he had ever smelled.

"I did some remodeling while you were gone, Matty-Matty-kun!" Misa piped up as if nothing was wrong. She pulled everyone out of the elevator and into the infernal pits of hell.

And lo, what infernal pits they were.

----

Raito felt as if he had stepped off of the edge of reality and plunged into a blinding, hot, rancid Care Bears set. The hellish scenery around him wasn't covered in flames, but in seizure-inducing rainbows and flower arrangements. The streets were lined with Muppets and ponies, each one singing something similarly deafening. A troupe resembling a bad live-action Disney musical sailed past on an electric yellow hearse, raking their nails against a vibrant chalkboard, spitting gum onto the asphalt, whipping passers-by with a long cat-o-nine-tails, and dancing in inebriated hysteria to a deplorably-remixed version of the Pepsi Jingle.

The hot, stifling air smelled like a toxic mixture of salmon, onions, petunias, and rotten meat. The sky from which it wafted was a pale, blinding shade of blue that was so boring, it made Raito nearly want to rake his eyes out with one of the rusty forks dangling from the eaves above him.

Nearly.

Raito admitted, Misa's hell was unlike any hellish scene he'd ever imagined. He gave her credit for the sheer amount of agonized screaming and moaning, though.

Misa bounced into the street and beckoned cheerfully for Raito's crowd to follow. Ryuzaki stuck unusually close as they inched forward.

Suddenly, a Fraggle cried, "LONG LIVE QUEEN LUCY!"

A tumultuous roar enveloped the avenue in a torrent of deafening racket. The Muppets and ponies swayed where they sat in their plaid jackets and carnival shoes. They banged their peddlers' cans against the sidewalk. One particular neon blue pony belched a dazzling ball of fire into the air, toasting several seagulls in mid-flight, before deflating and crumbling into a twitching pile of ash.

Raito latched onto Ryuzaki for balance as he waded through the knee-deep procession of suffering Muppets. Of course, he cracked another joke at _Ryuzaki's_ footing, just as he had done when he, himself, nearly fell over as the elevator touched down.

Misa led them through the mob and into a quaint little hole-in-the-wall bar, where the noise disappeared the instant the door shut. The barman in the corner observed their entrance with no interest whatsoever and resumed his task of manically rubbing his immaculate shot glasses clean.

The room was empty.

For sixteen seconds, all was quiet.

"…Impressive," said Ryuzaki, on whom Raito was still leaning.

"What were those things?" the brunette asked as he casually removed himself from the ex-mini-death's shoulder.

"Oh, those? People!" Misa grinned.

"…People?" Raito asked skeptically

"Yes," Misa smiled. She invited them to sit down at the one sticky, smelly table in the room. "They were all ridiculous, hideous, useless, and annoying in life, so I made them ridiculous, hideous, useless, and annoying in death. Pretty cool, huh?"

"…I suppose," Raito grumbled as he attempted vainly to find a comfortable position on the broken, gooey barstool. Every time he shifted his weight, the stool would tilt on its uneven legs and nearly throw him off.

Nearly.

"I like to give my people a taste of their own medicine, sometimes," Misa explained. "There's nothing like being surrounded by people like you to make you realize how ridiculous, hideous, useless, and annoying you are, is there?"

"Ah, what a bright angel of enlightenment you are," Ryuzaki applauded. "Or are you an infernal demon of contempt?"

Misa giggled. "Stop flattering me! You're making me blush, Ryuzaki-kun!"

"You have such a cute blush, Misa-chan," Ryuzaki flattered her shamelessly.

Raito stopped his eyes in mid-roll and asked suddenly, "So why are we here?"

Misa blinked, smiling and having no idea what he was talking about. "I rescued you, Raito-waito-kun! You know that. Silly."

"No, I meant here, in this… bar," Raito clarified with a suspicious search around the room.

"Oh! Well, I'm gonna' get you drunk, of course!" Misa giggled manically and wiggled her ass on the barstool.

"Oh. Right," said Raito, who was glad that drinking was the worst deed Misa could think of. It wasn't.

"Actually," she tilted her head cutely and found an interesting scratch in the table. "There's something I want you guys to do for me. You know, as payback!" Misa then beamed at Raito with her best sparkly smile. She clasped her hands over her heart and whined, "You'll do it for me, won't you? I mean, you _owe_ me after all. Right, Raito-bunny?"

A ha.

Raito grinned with as much toxic, gooey amity as he could counterfeit. "Of course, Misa! I'll do anything for you."

"_Aaaaaaaanything?"_ Misa squealed.

"Anything," Raito smiled.

The blonde bounced excitedly on the sticky barstool and squeaked happily at Rem, who seemed nearly as clueless as the rest of them. Misa turned back and smacked her ruby lips in thought.

"…_Weeeelllllllll_…"

----

"Do you think I could ask all _three_ of you guys to do something for me?"

Misa's eyes gleamed with a knock-off of genuine hopefulness. Really, her sugar-glazed mannerism's were getting on L's nerves and for a moment or two, he wished with all of his heart that she _were_ a sugar-glazed doughnut so that he could just eat her and that would be the end of it.

Alas, misfortune and reality both smiled down upon L with their menacing unibrows and sharp, pointy teeth, so Misa never _did_ turn into a jelly doughnut and that _wasn't_ the end of it.

"Ryuzaki and I agree to help you, don't we, Ryuzaki?" Raito haphazardly tossed L into the spotlight.

The ex-mini-death straightened up and tried his best to look like he wasn't plotting anyone's death in secret. "Of course, Raito-kun, though I wonder about Matt. He is quite useless, actually."

"Oh, sure," wailed the ailing Matt, who until this point had been melting in courteous silence into a puddle of self-pity on the floor.

"You hear? He agrees," said L.

Matt moaned.

"Yay!" Misa celebrated. After she finished waving her arms in the air, she leaned in slyly and beckoned her audience closer with the wide, reeling gestures of a cartoon caricature. L glanced at Raito, Raito shrugged at L, and they both leaned in. Suddenly, Misa pouted and kicked out with her foot. From the gooey floorboards, Matt howled.

"You're ruining it, Matty-Matty-kun!" Misa whined. "Get in the huddle! Come on!"

Matt popped piteously onto the table and hung there like a soggy dishrag.

"Good," Misa clapped her hands villainously. She grinned at the miserable mini-death. "You're gonna' like this, Matty-Matty-kun! I know you will!"

"So what is this evil scheme of yours, hm?" L asked with the express purpose of pushing the discussion along.

Misa wiggled around on her barstool for a few seconds before weaving her fingers together and resting her bottom lip against her hands. Her elastic lips stretched outward in a vulpine grin.

"Well, there's this _guy_…"

"Another one?" Matt wailed.

Misa ignored him. "I've actually been trying to kill him for a long time. I mean, a _looong _time. Like, a million kajillion trillion years long."

"…What?" grumbled Raito, wearing on his face the mental comprehension of a frozen vole.

Yes, what? L knew better than anyone that no one escaped the wrath of a vengeful teenage girl. Who could possibly escape the judgment of her shinigami? Better yet, how could her sworn enemy have lived for as long a time as she specified?

…_God?_

Dumbly, L blurted, "God?"

"No!" Misa hissed. The blonde crossed her arms and pouted with her snooty nose in the air. "I'm not ordering his assassination until he's paid off all of the poker debts he owes me. The cheap bastard…"

"Yes," L remarked dryly. "Of course."

"Anyway," Misa bemusedly ran the pads of her thumbs along the tips of her fingernails. "I want you guys to kill this guy for me."

Well, L saw that one coming.

So had Raito.

"…Okay, so what did this guy do to make you so angry?" the brunette asked.

Misa gave them both the stink-eye. "He steals my business _and_ he trespasses on my property. He's not supposed to come here, to hell, but he does it anyway and he steals _chocolate_ from _my_ candy store! It's mine! Mine!"

"And the name of this perpetrator," L asked curiously.

Misa hugged her arms tighter to herself in a rigid, angular knot. She glowered at the floor and it spontaneously combusted into a circle of blue-hot flame.

"That stupid blonde who copied my hairstyle. Mello."

The surrounding space-time hiccupped, L fell off of his chair, and Matt dropped into an unconsciousness from which he could not be awoken for four whole days.

----

Chibi L: Durrr…

Chibi Raito: What is this, some sort of Christian magic???

Me: No, it's only a reference to L's (much) earlier comment that time runs differently in other realms. So here it is! A hiccup in the time continuum.

Chibi Matt: Foaming at the mouth.

Chibi Raito: …Should we help him?

Chibi Misa: No. –evil grin-

Me: Well, it was a short chapter, especially considering the time it took me to write –cough-procrastinate-cough-, but be nice. I'm… working. Kind of hard, I guess… I am Christmas shopping and English-homework-doing, so shut up. D:

Chibi Raito: Burn the witch.

Chibi Misa: Uh… yeah. So, Swirl is a jerk. Kill her, and as always, review, review, review!


	23. Cold

**DS**

To Majika923: Omfug wut now?? :D ?

**Disclaimer:** If I owned it, would I be writing fanfiction?

Chibi Raito: No.

Me: Right.

Chibi L: So… do you have a clever excuse for submitting a late chapter this time?

Me: Laziness.

Chibi Matt: Wow. That's deep.

Me: …Yes. So! Without further ado, here you go! Have a happy late Valentine's Day!

Chibi Matt: Happy VD!

Chibi L: -scoff-

Chibi Misa: Enjoy your late late late chapter of lateness. Read, review, and relax!

**D S 23**

"Kelly Clarkson!"

Startled, L jumped out of his armchair. He swiveled his head and squinted in the direction of the sudden outburst. His eyes found Matt there, bolt upright on the battered Chesterfield, clutching his blanket in his fingers and gritting his teeth like a man possessed.

Somewhat less surprised than he expected to be, L remarked, "Oh. There you are."

"Where am I?" the brunette asked through a veil of tangled hair.

"There," said L, just because he could.

"Where's there?" Matt's voice slowly ebbed from a quaking catastrophe to a rhythmic trampoline bounce.

"You're sitting on it," said L.

"Oh." Matt seemed to study the buttoned couch carefully. "Sorry."

It was during this intense scrutiny of the couch that L finally decided to state the obvious. "You're quite out of it."

"What's it?" asked Matt.

"Whatever it is," L replied sagely, "you're out of it, so you do not need to worry about it."

"Yeah," Matt replied with the vacancy of a man who could not tell for the life of him which way was up.

L studied him indefinitely. He supposed that, having slept for three days, it was only natural for Matt to be a bit out of his element. L considered himself lucky that Matt had neither the energy nor the brain power to ask about Mello.

L hadn't understood it, either.

When Misa shared the news, L felt nothing. He wasn't surprised, he wasn't appalled, and he wasn't overjoyed. He simply was.

How _Mello_ simply was, L could not tell.

According to the mundane news reports of his dust-beige home world, Mello was dead, had been dead, and as far as biology was concerned, would remain dead for quite a long time. That was the way things went.

Well, as far as L could tell, anyway.

In his indefinite years of experience, people generally stayed dead, with one exception. However, L absolutely refused to believe in the existence of a second Messiah after the first one hit his terrible teenage years.

After much thought, L came to a simple, startling revelation.

Yes, Mello was dead.

No, he was not dead _yet_.

Time was a funny, ridiculous thing. Sometime during the first days of their awkward camaraderie, L recalled having a discussion with Raito about it. Time was one thing in one universe, but an entirely different thing elsewhere. Time in L's suburb of perpetual mundanity ran in a straight line.

Earth's time was more like a plane. From his home, L could drop anywhere on the space-time continuum. Near and Mello made frequent trips to and from the Earth, so time travel was just another normal activity for them.

Then it would make sense.

Did that mean…

…Near was alive?

----

Raito wasn't surprised by the sheer amount of things there _weren't_ to do in hell. He contented himself with the few activities he did find, which consisted mainly of watching old Ping-Pong tournaments on VHS, throwing rocks at the lower citizens of hell, and window-shopping. He had nothing else to do, really. For all Raito knew, Matt would wake up a minute from then or a year from then.

Or never.

Raito didn't know why he was waiting for Matt to wake up, anyway. He was perfectly capable of finding and confronting Mello by himself.

…Or maybe he was waiting because he had no idea how to lure Mello out. He was also uncomfortably unfamiliar with the territory. Hell had no road maps. Raito hadn't the time to familiarize himself with his surroundings. He had been quite literally plucked off of the face of the Earth.

Suddenly, Raito's cell phone rang. Since he was extremely bored of wandering aimlessly, he answered.

"Hello?"

"Ah, Raito-kun. Matt is awake," L's voice grated.

"Oh," muttered Raito, "How's he doing?"

"Not well," L remarked calmly. "He is talking to himself."

"And what is he saying?"

"Well, it's something about his car. His head isn't on just right, so I think he does not remember passing out after hearing about Mello."

Suddenly, Raito heard a ghastly, howling, "WHAT" blast through the speakers of his phone.

"Ah, Matt. How do you f-"

"WHAT?" the voice choked.

L went silent for a second. After a troubled click of the tongue, he remarked, "Raito-kun, I will speak to you later. Meanwhile, could you please come back to the apartment?"

"…Sure," Raito replied.

"Thank you. Goodbye."

"Bye."

Click.

Raito instantly decided to head back. The monotony of L's request was enough to convince him that the ex-mini-death was worried about something. On the bright side, Raito was ready for any surprise. As a matter of fact, he wanted to be surprised, appalled, or anything else that would get his adrenaline pumping.

He was bored as hell.

Literally.

Raito shoved his way through throngs of sluggish demons, waded through puddles of pitiful beggars, and dodged mindlessly puttering taxi cabs on his way back to the apartment. Come to think of it, he had never properly thanked Misa for her generosity. She gave them the apartment as a gift for their volunteer work in catching Mello. For the duration of their stay, however, they'd been less than useless.

Misa made Mello's attacks seem frequent and full of furious fanfare, but nothing happened. Nothing _ever_ happened.

Was it all a ploy to keep Raito stuck in hell forever?

He didn't have much time to think on it, as he found himself suddenly standing on the concrete stoop in front of the apartment door. Raito let himself in, much to the apparent dismay of the building itself.

The instant he opened the door, he was assailed by the most horrific keening he'd ever heard. He peeked suspiciously out of the foyer to see a pale, ghostly Matt sail across the living room and attach himself to the wall. Ryuzaki waited in patient, silent amusement with his fingers pressed to a twitching smile.

"You should really come down from there," Ryuzaki advised.

"Where's Mello?" Matt changed the subject.

"Well, he certainly is not on that wall there. Is that not a good reason to come down and stand on the floor like a civilized human being?"

"I'm not a human being," said Matt.

"You're not civilized either," Ryuzaki chided for the fun of it.

"Where's Mello?"

"On the floor."

"You're lying."

"No, I am not. If Mello is Kira and Kira is a human being, then factually speaking, Mello must be in some field of gravity and therefore on the floor somewhere. You see?"

"…Yes."

"Good. Now come down."

As Matt gingerly tested the floor with his toes, Raito crept furtively into the living room. Judging by the scene he had just witnessed, Matt was not on good terms with reality. Raito addressed Ryuzaki.

"Something wrong?"

"Oh, no. Not now," Ryuzaki responded in an airy manner that implied he was too bored to be bothered. "Something _was_ wrong, but not anymore. I predict, though, that something will be wrong again in a minute or two. In the meantime, have you uncovered any more information about our target?"

"Mello?" Raito inquired

"Yes," replied the ex-mini-death.

Raito glared with enough concentrated boredom and frustration to kill a whale. Ryuzaki maintained his mindless smile and sleepless eye. "Something wrong, Raito-kun?"

"Ryuzaki, has it ever occurred to you what a _mind-numbing_ place this is?"

"Frequently," he replied.

"I assumed there would be much more action here."

"As in?"

"Chocolate heists. Everywhere. You know, the impending and repetitive events Misa warned us about."

"And you have dutifully observed that none of Misa's fears have presented themselves," Ryuzaki concluded with an exceptionally sage slump of the posture. "In other words, you believe she was lying."

"I do."

"In that case, I suggest we beg an explanation from our lovely she-devil. What do you think?"

The corner of Raito's eye twitched. It wasn't that easy.

"One does not simply _walk _into Mordor, Ryuzaki," Raito pointed out.

"If you read the book, Raito-kun, you will find that one simply did walk into Mordor. Two, actually," countered Ryuzaki.

"Stop being smart."

"Intelligence is in my nature, Raito-kun."

Damn.

"Fine. Tell Misa she was wrong. Tell her that Mello isn't here, but I'm not sweeping up your ashes."

"I don't expect you to," Ryuzaki remarked mildly. With no further input on Raito's part, the ex-mini-death twisted the dial on the greasy house phone and perched daintily on the edge of the old, three-legged coffee table. Raito took a seat on the vacant sofa and watched as Matt scooted mindlessly across the wooden floor.

"Ah, Misa-Misa-chan?" Ryuzaki chimed into the phone like a glockenspiel on Prozac. "Yes, the weather is beautiful. The sky is exceptionally bland today. Are you busy at the moment?"

Apparently not.

"Wonderful, wonderful. Now, Raito-kun and I have noticed that our stay has been unusually relaxing. Hm? Raito-kun? Of course you can speak to him." Ryuzaki shot Raito a decidedly piteous look. He held the phone out and the spiraling cord thumped sickly against the arm of the couch. "Oh, Raito-kun, your princess calls."

Raito rolled his eyes. He dragged himself to the phone. He was dog tired from walking around all day and a conversation with the devil was the last thing he needed. "Hello, Misa."

"Raito-kun!" Misa squealed, "You never call me anymore!"

"I've been… busy," Raito replied lamely. "I want to find that 'Mello' of yours as quickly as possible so he can't bother you anymore."

"Oh, you're so _sweet_! I just wanna' eat you up!"

Of course…

"…Yeah, well I can't find him. Could he have… _left _by any chance?"

"Yeah. He left a while ago."

…

…_What?_

"Well then, where did he go? Do you know?"

"Back to earth," Misa's very voice seemed to shrug.

"Then… why didn't you tell us?" Raito forced a smile.

"You didn't ask, silly! Duh!"

…Seriously? _Seriously?_ There Raito was, steeped in the sludgy despair of boredom, surrounded by agonizing scenery, accompanied by questionably sane people, and he could have been somewhere else.

He could have been _doing_ something.

"Misa, do you know where he is on earth?"

Misa cackled into her phone like a teenage girl at a sleepover party. "It's not _where, _you stinker! It's _when_."

"…Okay, then _when_ is he?"

"I'm not _telling yooouuuuu…_"

"Come on, Misa. Give me a hint." Seriously. Raito could only play the 'cute' game for so long.

"Okay! Well, he's in the _future…_" Misa whispered with cryptic mysticism.

Anywhere but hell was fine with Raito. "Fine. So, can you send us back to earth in the future, or…?"

"Duh! Raito, you silly goose!"

Yes! Now they were getting somewhere. Raito had to admit, this 'future' of Misa's disconcerted him a bit. She refused to disclose the distance of this future. For all Raito knew, she was sending him to his death.

Currently, however, he didn't care. He had seen hell, which was arguably the worst the universe could come up with.

Just to be safe, he asked, "Give me a hint. How far into the future?"

"Just a few years. What, is little Raito-Waito afraid of flying cars or something?"

"Yes."

"That's so _cuuuute_! Don't worry, there aren't any flying cars yet!"

Wonderful.

"Can you take us there, then? Back to earth?" Raito would _die_ to go back to earth, which was a reverse pun, really.

"Aww, you don't like it here, Raito-Waito-chan?"

"I made a promise to you, Misa. I said I'd do whatever you wanted, and you want me to get rid of this pesky 'Mello' guy. If he bothers you as much as you say, I want to get him out of your hair as soon as possible."

Misa squealed. "You're so nice!" Then, she paused. "If that's really what you want… then I _suppose_ I can send you back…"

"That would be fantastic."

"Okay, Raito-kun! Here goes! A one and a two and a-"

Abruptly, the fabric of space-time broke and the apartment fell out of the bottom of the universe.

----

L was really getting sick of falling. He was also getting sick of the darkness that accompanied it. What he hated most about time-traveling, however, was that it almost always ended on his ass.

L sat criss-cross on the floor of the dank, humming dungeon, arms crossed over his chest and eyes squinted into charcoal smudges. He landed there not a split second before and his spine was the sorest it had ever been.

He felt he needed to complain about it.

"You know," his voice echoed from the cavernous ribs of the beast, "the next time this happens, we're riding a mattress."

"Stop being such a baby," Raito coughed from some dusky, distant location. "Where are we, anyway?"

Ruefully, L threw his glare to the invisible ceiling. "We appear to be locked in a giant warehouse. The echoes tell that much. There must be a fan in here somewhere as well. That humming noise is grating on my nerves."

Somewhere within the yawning, sinister depths of the warehouse, someone sneezed.

"Matt?" Raito called out.

"DUST!" Matt wailed as if his life had ended.

"Calm down, Matt. What the hell is wrong with you, anyway?" Raito shouted.

"DROVES OF DUST MOTES," said Matt.

"It's no use talking to him, you know," L grumbled boredly, rolling onto his back and considering the invisibility of the rafters. "He has gone completely mad."

"A THOUSAND YEARS OF DARKNESS."

"Matt, where the hell are you?"

"DARKNESS…"

"Oh. There you are."

Suddenly, a faint blue halo traced the summit of a mountain of crates to L's right. Still in a foul mood from falling again, L glowered at it. Pinpricks of light appeared between immense, dark rectangles. A gap in the cargo revealed Raito's ghostly blue face in the light of his cell phone.

Feeling slightly more inspired to move, L crawled across the black floor and toward the gap. He entered Raito's circle of light to find him baby-talking Matt through a game of Tetris.

"Tetris," L observed.

"Tetris," Raito agreed.

"TETRIS," said Matt.

"Why Tetris?" L puzzled.

"It's one of the only games I have on my cell phone," Raito shrugged. "Maybe it'll help him snap out of it."

"Wonderful," grumbled L. "In the meantime, how do we get out of here?"

"Wait for Matt to revive enough brain cells. Then, he can get us out," Raito grumbled.

It was the only plan either of them had and they decided to stick with it. Waiting for Matt to liven up was an excruciatingly boring job, though. The warehouse was also very cold.

While the impervious Matt decimated hoards of little colored blocks, Raito grumbled and threw himself at L like a freshly killed bearskin rug. They curled up together in a ball of mutual misery. L tucked Raito's head beneath his chin and Raito rubbed irregular, soothing circles in L's back.

"Friction," Raito grumbled as if that explained everything.

L grinned lewdly. "You know, if you want _friction-_"

"Shut up, Ryuzaki. Seriously."

L happily left it at that. He and Raito snuggled closer and closer until they were nothing but an indistinguishable mass of limbs. Nevertheless, Raito still shook a little from time to time and L wasn't sure he liked that. The darkness told him to sleep, but he found he was much too attentive to Raito's little drops in heart rate and temperature. L shouldn't have been as worried as he was, especially considering that he was stuck in a warehouse, not on top of a mountain.

He worried anyway.

There L was, hands wrapped around Raito's back and neck, trying to keep the heat in, listening to his sleepy breath slowly evening out, when out of the blue-

"GOD FUCKING DAMMIT BATTERY'S DEAD!"

Raito and L both jumped as the light vanished and a deafening, resounding crack replaced it. Raito's cell phone shrieked beneath Matt's shoes.

"RRRRRAAAAAAGE!" Matt's roars filled the air.

"God damn, Matt! Shut the hell up!" Raito hissed.

"Aaaaugh! One more level! That's all I wanted! ONE. MORE. FUCKING. LEVEL! I was almost there!" Matt's voice reached L's ears in a spiral as the mini-death rampaged around them.

L smelled an opportunity to get Raito out of the cold.

"You know, Matt, if you get us out of here, we could possibly find another console for you."

"A what?"

"More video games," Raito chimed in. "I always have my wallet in my pocket. Break us out and I'll buy you something. In the meantime, give my phone back."

"Yessir!" Matt chirped.

He then tossed Raito something.

Two somethings.

"You bastard," said Raito.

"I was angry, okay?" Matt grumbled indignantly. "Next time, make sure it's charged. Dumbass…"

Matt's anger was a good sign. He was speaking in complete, relevant sentences, which was also a plus. Raito's remedy had worked and now Matt was off to discover an exit.

L was pleasantly surprised when Raito snuggled back into his neck. "Everything should be fine as long as we don't mention _you know who_." Raito grumbled like the grouch he tried so hard to be. He seemed tired and genuinely unlovable at this point. Perhaps he had a more taxing day than L thought.

As luck would have it, Matt was incredibly good at finding routes of escape. Minutes after leaving, he soared back into the expanse. "Good news, lovebirds! I found a door!"

"Cookie for you," grumbled L, who really wanted more alone time with Raito, even if it was in a drafty warehouse. Raito didn't appear to loathe the news, though. He meshed his fingers together with L's and allowed Matt to pull his free sleeve to safety.

They traveled like a daisy-chain of blind mimes. L was constantly suspicious that Matt would deliberately drag Raito into a wall of crates. Raito, meanwhile, wanted nothing more than to escape. Frankly, L found it depressing.

"Raito-kun would rather leave than spend time here with me?" L asked in his best puppy voice.

Raito audibly rolled his eyes. "Ryuzaki, it's cold in here. We'd both freeze to death."

"Spoilsport," grumbled L.

Slivers of white light heralded a portal to the outside world. Matt disappeared for a moment into the inky blackness and a mechanical buzz echoed through the expanse. The garage door in front of them rose steadily to the ceiling and L had to squint his eyes at the bright outdoor light. It was then that he realized why the warehouse was so cold.

Misa had dropped them in the middle of winter.

"Fuck," Raito cursed as a gust of glittering wind assailed him. L quickly wrapped his arms around the brunette, whose body temperature had already dropped dramatically. Raito's body was all skin and lean muscle. While L loved him for it, it would also be his downfall.

"You need a coat," L observed.

"So do you," Raito retorted. "You're shaking like a maraca."

This took L by surprise. He arched an eyebrow and glanced into Raito's glowering eyes. "Really?"

"Fuck, yes," the brunette shivered. "First thing's first. We're shopping for clothes, not video games."

"Traitors!" Matt shrieked.

"If you're so angry about it, steal something for us!" Raito roared.

Matt seemed to think it was a good idea. "Sure thing. Anyway, it looks like we're on a pier somewhere. Water is that way," Matt pointed behind them, "and civilization is that way," he pointed in the opposite direction. "We're a ways out, but if you guys run, you should stay warm and make it in no time."

L didn't trust Matt's advice at all, but either way, he and Raito were going to freeze to death.

"I'll get you guys some coats or something once you find somewhere to crash," Matt offered unhelpfully.

"Why not steal the coats first?" L grumbled.

Matt gave him the stink eye. "Dude. Flying. Fucking. Coats. Duh."

L rolled his eyes. He would have continued, but Raito suddenly sprinted for the door.

Without much ado at all, the brunette dashed recklessly out into the weather. L chased after him. The instant he jumped from the loading dock and onto the street, the winter air froze L's lungs. The light snow that drifted to the ground became a whirlwind of razors once the slightest gust rose. Flakes of ice blinded him and every hair on his body stood on end.

He couldn't stop running, though.

He couldn't lose sight of Raito.

"Raito-kun!" L shouted breathlessly into the snowstorm.

The brunette looked back once, but kept running.

"What are you doing?" L shouted again.

"Running!" yelled Raito. When L asked him why, he turned around and said, "If we don't, we'll die anyway."

L shook his head in exasperation. The most logical move in a snowstorm was to find shelter. Raito had left the single safe haven they had and now he was running amok in the snow, freezing to death. Nevertheless, L had no choice but to follow him. Raito obviously had no regard for his personal health, so L had to do the worrying for the both of them.

It seemed to L like Raito was half a league ahead, vanishing into the veil of snow. He was trying to get out of the cold as fast as he could, but L had a sinking feeling that his speed was hurting him.

L didn't know how long or how far he followed Raito. His lungs burned from exertion and from the snow. His jeans had absorbed all of the cold in the air and multiplied it until he couldn't feel his legs anymore. His ears went, then his nose, then his cheeks, then his lips. Soon, L felt nothing but his own heartbeat.

Halfway through their mad dash, L closed the gap between Raito and himself. The brunette was still a few feet ahead, but considering his athletic background, he should have been a mile away.

Raito was getting weaker. He had been running around in hell all day, probably exhausting his energy just navigating the maze of streets and byways. Now, he was completely spent. His body was on the verge of shutting down.

As L pulled up beside the lagging Raito, he heard the brunette mumble something. He listened as closely as he could.

"It was a trap," Raito panted. "It was a trap."

_Misa's trap._

She dropped them off in the middle of nowhere during a blizzard. Of course it was a trap.

But they weren't going to die. L knew they weren't. Far in the distance, through the snow, L saw a set of glowing, rectangular lights. Windows. They got closer and brighter with every step. Soon, L could see the building they belonged to.

Raito could see it, too. He forced the last reserves of his energy into a final burst of speed. He shot ahead of L and onto the street. So it would happen, the curb was icy. With a cry more of frustration than surprise, Raito tumbled onto the street.

The next few moments passed like a lifetime before L's eyes. There, where the street became the snow and the snow became the street, there in the mist, there emerged two bright, bleeding lights. A very large shadow formed in the blizzard.

L did not think.

L acted.

L ran.

Into the street.

He pushed Raito out of the way.

The brunette rolled violently across the pavement.

Hit the wheel of a parked Mitsubishi.

L recoiled.

Regained his balance.

Looked over his shoulder.

And got struck.

By a bus.

----

Noise.

So much noise.

There hadn't been this much noise before. No, as a matter of fact, there had been no noise at all. None. Nothing but snow and crunching footsteps. Panting. Breathing.

(Panting?)

It hurt. Lungs hurt. Chest hurt. Couldn't move. God damn it. He couldn't breathe. His chest just kept getting tighter and tighter…

His arms didn't hurt. His legs didn't hurt. He couldn't feel them. He couldn't feel anything but his lungs and his aching head…

Why? Did someone hit him? Did something hit him? Maybe he hit something, but as far as he remembered…

Wait.

That was a tire. He remembered that tire. It belonged to a car that he'd seen while he was flying through the air. Someone tossed him. Someone shoved him and he lost his balance again.

(Again?)

Ice. He hit some. He lost his balance and went sliding on the street. His foot got caught in the sidewalk and he went forward. Onto his face. Why the _hell_ did he _always_ fall on his fucking _face_?

No. Not onto his face. The side of his face. The side of his head.

(Wet?)

Sticky.

(Blood?)

Pavement.

(Oozing? Dripping? Flowing? Seeping?)

There was something on the ground below his eye. He couldn't see it, but he knew it was his. Used to be his. Then, it left. There it went. He couldn't see it.

He couldn't see anything but the tire.

Hearing things was a different matter. He heard all sorts of dreadful things. Yelling. Talking. Babbling. Disgusting. He was on the ground. He was tired. He couldn't breathe. He wanted to go to sleep.

(Stop talking.)

He was nice and warm, though.

Ryuzaki kept him nice and warm, too.

(Ryuzaki?)

(_Ryuzaki?)_

(Ryuzaki!)

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He couldn't move. He couldn't move. He couldn't see. He could hear people talking but he had no idea what they were saying. It was Japanese. He knew it was Japanese, but he couldn't tell for the life of him what it meant. He didn't know. He didn't know.

Why was the tire flashing like that? Red. Red. Red.

Something happened.

Raito didn't remember what happened.

Something happened.

Ryuzaki. Ryuzaki. Ryuzaki.

Something touched him. Something happened. The tire disappeared. Up. Red silver red silver. Everything was red. Then, it wasn't. Dark. There was a dark spot. It was talking. He couldn't understand.

He wanted to close his eyes. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't close his eyes. Something shook him when he did.

He couldn't see Ryuzaki.

Where the fuck was Ryuzaki?

(Relax.)

…What?

(Relax. Stay calm.)

Reeling. Spinning. Why was he spinning? He wasn't. There was the ground. He felt it there. Why?

(You have a concussion.)

…Oh. He didn't remember hitting his head. Did he? Wait… Shit, he didn't know.

(You wouldn't.)

"Don't sass me."

(You're talking. That's good.)

"…What?"

(You're talking.)

"What am I saying?"

(How many fingers am I holding up?)

"Fuck, I have no idea. Put them in front of my face first, moron."

Wait. There they were. Four, five, six, seven WRONG. That was one hand. Hands had five fingers. Five. Not… seveneightnineten twelve? Why twelve?

(You see twelve?)

Fuck no. Five. Twelve was wrong.

Now wait a minute. Where the fuck was Ryuzaki?

He blinked. He tried to get up. Something pushed him down.

Hang on. That dark spot was a person. He could see its lips now. He could see its eyes too. It had a big, disgusting beak of a nose and its eyebrows were like crows' wings. It had been talking to him and he had been talking back.

He couldn't see it very well, though. One of his eyes was blurry. The other one was a pinprick of murky light surrounded by red. Veins. Someone was shining a light in that eye. He could see the backs of his retinas. Unhealthy…

"Where's Ryuzaki?" he growled at Crow-eyebrows.

"Is that your friend's name?" asked Crow-eyebrows.

"Yes."

"He's going to be all right," Crow said with a slow, reverent nod.

"I didn't ask you _how_ he was going to be, idiot. I asked you where the fuck he was. Do you even speak Japanese?"

"I've been speaking it."

Oh.

"Tell me, son. Do you remember your name?"

(Raito.)

"No," Raito lied just to fuck with his head.

"You sure?" asked Crow.

"Yeah, I'm fucking sure. Now answer my fucking question," Raito demanded.

"You can remember your friend's name, but not your own?" Crow cooed in a coaxing baby voice.

"He's a very important friend. Just tell me where the hell he is."

Crow looked to his side. Something must've given him the go-ahead because he looked straight back into Raito's eyes. He took a deep breath. "Ryuzaki is in a stretcher right now."

"The hell's a stretcher?" Raito grumbled.

"A stretcher is a thing that people use to carry injured people to safety."

"I know that! What do you think I am, a moron?" Raito scoffed.

Crow gave him a look.

Hang on. Injured. Injured people in stretchers. Ryuzaki wouldn't be in a stretcher unless he was injured. How injured?

(Honk, honk. Swearing. Air. Lots of air. Mitsubishi. Wheel. Tire. Black. Wake up. Blood. His blood.)

Bus.

Bus.

Bus.

"Oh, my God."

"Hey. Just calm down. You're going to be fine. Breathe, okay?"

"Oh, my _God_."

"Stay calm. Shh. You're fine. Steady, there."

"Oh my _fucking_ GOD!"

"Slow down! Slow down! Deep breaths. Breathe. Bre- are you listening to me? Oh, fuck. Now look what happened. He was just fine, and then-"

_Blackout._

Lights go past. Light. Light. Light. Keening. Wailing. Ears hurt. Ouch. There's a fucking needle in his arm. He can feel it. Something touched him (stop fucking touching me).

Pressure. Vein.

_Blackout._

Lights go past. Light. Light. Light. Babbling. Urgent. Green walls. Fluorescent bulbs. Sterile. Clean. Cold (I'm cold).

Room. Monitor. Beep. Mask. Tube. Clear.

_Blackout._

Breathing. Slow. Deep.

"You found this in his back pocket?"

"It's definitely a wallet."

"But… look at it. This money… you can't buy anything with this crap. Yen! Can you imagine? What an antique."

"Did you see that ID? It's him all right. Is it current?"

"…This picture was taken ten years ago."

Ten. Breathing. Faster. Shallower.

"Shit! Go get me anothe-"

_Blackout._

Drip.

"We've contacted the police and they say a Soichiro Yagami filed a missing persons report in 2009."

"And you think this is…?"

"I have no fucking idea."

Drip.

_Blackout._

Raito woke up to the sound of a really fucking annoying bird outside his window. A crow. For some strange reason, he wanted to swat at it. His arm was stuck, though. Gingerly, he opened his eyes. He instantly regretted it.

Suddenly, everything was too bright, even with his eyes shut. He brought the other arm up, but it was attached to something as well. He tugged and the pressure on his pinky suddenly disappeared with a clip-like snap. He brought the arm over his tightly shut eyelids and rested his nose in the crook of his elbow.

Then, something noisy tightened around his free arm.

Raito had it. He gnawed on the restrictive band around his arm and kicked his legs up in the air seemingly for the fun of it. Blankets gathered around his body in clumps as he flailed angrily and aimlessly. He could tell by the sudden creak of the door and onslaught of worried voices that he had been discovered.

Raito had the last laugh, though. He couldn't get the band off of his arm, so he swung it into what felt like a pole. The pole rocketed away with the force of impact and Raito could feel a long, flexible tube sliding out of his arm. It left with a wet pop and a spurt. Arms and fingers were suddenly everywhere, pulling his liberated arm back to its place and imprisoning it there with an elastic strap. Most of the hands were frantically trying to dam his other arm up.

Raito sensed rather than saw the dark arterial sludge erupting from his flesh and dripping quickly earthward. The people in the room chattered and chattered. Some were talking to each other and some were talking to him. In any case, the room was getting far too loud, far too bright, and far too painful to be in.

Raito took a deep breath and yelled in all of four seconds, "Look-I-can-understand-why-you're-in-such-a-hurry-but-could-you SHUT THE FUCK UP, PLEASE!"

Quiet.

"Is something wrong, hon?"

"Fuck YEEESSSS something's wrong. God, you _people_ are so _loud_ and this _room_ is so _bright_ and I can't move my goddamn arms!"

"Does it hurt?"

"Fuck, it hurts."

"We're going to pull the shades and shut all the lights off, okay, sweetie?"

"God, yes."

"We also need to put this IV back in your arm, so you might feel a little pokey-pokey. Mmkay?"

"God, woman. Shut up. Your voice is like train wreck."

The nurse laughed ruefully. She then proceeded to reintroduce the annoying IV to Raito's arm. "You're a little spitfire, aren't you?"

Raito sighed.

He didn't know what he was anymore. He just felt so… blah. There but not there. He knew he was forgetting something. He knew he was supposed to be angry about it. Hell, he was supposed to throw a fit.

What was it?

"What is it?" Raito groaned.

"Morphine," said the nurse.

"Fucking morphine," said Raito.

The brunette felt acrylic nails in his hair. The nurse was petting him. "Calm down, dear. You've had a rough day."

Wait. "Day?" Raito croaked.

"Mm hmm. That accident happened this morning at around three. You've been in and out of the ICU like a hot potato. First, we think you're okay, then you're not, then you are… So we kept you here just in case."

"…Which ICU?"

"TICU. Trauma."

"…What time is it?"

"Five o clock in the evening."

"What year is it?"

The nurse paused. "What year is it?" she repeated.

"Yeah."

"…It's 2018."

Raito groaned. 2018. Nine years. He had been gone for nine years.

The nurse stroked his hair again. "I'm going to go get the doctor. He wants to talk to you. Okay?"

"Where?" Raito asked breathlessly.

The nurse paused. "Where what?"

"Where are we?"

"…Tokyo, hon."

_Tokyo. Nine years…_

He was still forgetting something…

Raito tried opening his eyes again. He squinted at his surroundings. As far as Raito could tell, he was in a room. Odd. The ICU was supposed to be an open place, wasn't it? Just beds and curtains and dying people…

Raito was in an isolated room and he liked it. No coughing, no groaning. No sick smell.

Suddenly, the door opened again. This time, instead of several nurses, Raito got a big, bulky doctor. The doctor slowly set a clipboard and a pen on a steel table at the opposite end of the tiny room. He greeted Raito with a long and careful "He-llooooo."

"Hey," Raito offered weakly.

The doctor smiled a doctor smile. "How are we today? Feeling any pain, dizziness… feeling sick?"

Doctor small-talk.

"Yes," Raito growled.

"I see," the doctor smiled. He pulled up a stool from beneath the steel table. "Let's cut to the chase," he said as he sat. "You sustained a severe concussion this morning."

Raito knew that. At least… he thought he did. He didn't remember much from that morning. He remembered landing in a warehouse with Ryuzaki. He remembered running out into the snow, and then he-

Ryuzaki.

His heart monitor beeped very angrily.

"Hey, hey, hey," the doctor warned, rising out of his seat. "Calm down."

Raito didn't calm down. Raito couldn't calm down. Raito did not know the meaning of the word 'calm.' Not when he remembered running and sliding and falling and flying and colliding and bleeding and-

Ryuzaki.

He couldn't breathe.

All of Raito's senses shut off. He couldn't hear, couldn't see, couldn't feel… but he knew he was awake. The massive sense of panic in his chest told him so. Something was very wrong with Ryuzaki. Something was so wrong with Ryuzaki that no-one could tell Raito what it was.

(He's dead, you bastard. That's why they can't tell you.)

Raito's heart thudded in his chest like a boulder on a tin roof. One final, deep, huge beat.

And then it stopped.

----

…Ow.

There wasn't much more to say, really. That pretty much summed it up.

Ow.

He was almost certain that he'd been immobilized somehow. Either that, or the bus had taken his neck out of commission. There was a strip of self from his elbow to his pinky on his right hand that he could not feel, along with a numb foot. He could tell by the unnatural tranquility of his left leg that it would hurt like a bitch once the painkillers ran out. He could still feel the majority of himself, though, so the bus obviously hadn't done that much damage.

How on earth…?

Either L was a freak of nature or his constant slump had made his skeleton into an impervious fortress. He chose the latter. It sounded cooler.

L opened his eyes and yawned hugely. In examining his surroundings, he found himself to be boxed-in on all sides by distasteful hospital-blue curtains. He attempted to examine the state of his body, but his neck wouldn't bend that far. His rather uncomfortable neck brace refused to budge.

L was left with no choice but to sit back, relax, and enjoy the scenery.

In the midst of his sage contemplation, a nurse walked in.

"Hello," she greeted him with a cute, happy smile.

"Hi," L replied with what he imagined to be an impossibly stupid face.

"You're awake," the nurse smiled. "That's a good sign."

"Of course," retorted L. "Why wouldn't I be awake?"

"Well, you've been out all day. Zonked. Did you have a good snooze?" she babbled all in the spirit of playfulness.

"Hmm… passable, I suppose." He then delved deeper into his awakening consciousness. "My brain doesn't seem to be working like it should. Maybe that's because… my feet…" L attempted to remove his feet from their bindings with no success. He sulked sourly.

"What about your feet?" the nurse asked quizzically.

"I can't move them, you see. When I don't sit just right, my reasoning ability drops by forty percent."

"I see," the nurse nodded mirthfully, clearly taking it as a joke. "Well, I'm sure this is part of it," she tapped the IV bag with her finger.

"Morphine?" L quirked an eyebrow.

"Naw. Not that strong. Your friend, though. He needed some."

"Ah! Raito-kun. How is he?"

The nurse blinked and froze as if stunned. "I'll be right back," she mentioned after a second or so.

L frowned. He _had_ pushed Raito out of the way, hadn't he? Of course. Then what was wrong with him? Had he gotten hit by another vehicle? Did he bleed to death? What?

The painkillers kicked in just then and L found that he couldn't really remember what he was so worried about. He was just… so…

_Wheeeeee…_

A doctor returned with the nurse that had just left. The doctor offered L a grave, professional smile. "He-lloooooo," he lowed like a cow at pasture. L almost snickered at the thought.

As a matter of fact, his IV fluid gave him enough audacity to say, "Mmmm-oooooo."

The nurse gagged with laughter and slapped a hand to her mouth.

L giggled.

"That's very funny," the doctor not-laughed. He introduced himself, introduced the nurse, made small talk with which L was all too happy to oblige, and finally cut to the chase. "You… have a brunette friend, hm?"

The doctor was choosing his words carefully. Hmm…

"I do. What about him? Is he well?"

"Well, according to him, he doesn't remember his name. We found some IDs in his wallet, but… well, we had to make sure."

Obviously the amnesia was a ruse. L had blown it, but what the hell. Unbeknownst to Raito, he had just invented a game. L was going to play it, too.

"So, Ryuzaki-kun, are you sure his name is Raito?"

L made his best deer-in-headlights impression. He froze, eyes wide and lips sealed to a thin line. "Who told you my name was Ryuzaki?"

The doctor was blown backward. "He did."

"Who did?"

"Raito."

"Raito-kun knows my name?"

"…Yes."

"Oh, thank heavens. I'd forgotten. Well, problem solved," L grinned amicably.

The doctor's patience disappeared. "You're playing games with me."

"Delightful games, Doctor-san," L giggled irreverently. "Delightful games, delightful games."

The doctor not-laughed again. He rolled his shoulders and grabbed his clipboard. "I'm a busy man, Ryuzaki-kun. There are a few things I need to know about Raito. They're very important."

"Shoot," L sighed.

"What is his full name?"

"His full name is Yagami Raito-kun."

"Wonderful." The doctor growled in delayed exasperation. "So you don't know your name, he doesn't know his name, but you both know each other's…" he snapped back to attention. "So his name _is_ Yagami Raito?"

"No, his name is John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt."

"…Are you screwing with me again?"

"His name is my name too, you know."

"This isn't funn-"

"Whenever we go out-"

"Oh, a funny guy are-"

"The people always shout-"

"Real funny. Real fu-"

"There goes JOHN JACOB JINGLEHEIMERSCHMIDT!"

The doctor fell into a silent glower, tapping his pencil impatiently on his clipboard. He glared into L's eyes and nodded his head condescendingly. "Are you done ye-"

"DA-DA DA-DA DA-DA DA!"

The doctor threw his clipboard on the ground and stormed out. L twiddled his toes in childish glee.

"They're like a fucking circus," L heard the doctor swear. "Both of them. The first one goes into spontaneous cardiac arrest when I mention the word 'concussion' and the other one's a living gag reel. Jesus Christ."

"Hold the phone!" L hollered louder than he ever had in his life. The doctor immediately reappeared at the curtain.

"What?"

"_Who_ is going into spontaneous cardiac arrest?"

"Your friend," the doctor muttered.

L froze.

That wasn't supposed to happen. Raito already had a heart attack. It couldn't happen again. It was impossible.

(Why did they want his name so badly? Was he…)

Oh God.

"God damn!" the doctor stomped his foot on the floor as if he'd seen it all before. He stormed away from the curtain. "We need to get these kids in the same room or I'm going to have a… I don't know what I'm going to have, but I'll have one. That's for _god_-damn sure."

Minutes later, the nurse popped in, seeming much less excited than before.

"Is he dead?" was the first question that left L's lips.

"No," the nurse sighed busily. "They got his heart started again."

L blinked. How strange. From the sound of things, nothing odd happened. Matt had strangely disappeared, so his involvement was doubtable. "He must not have been meant to die from it, then," L mused.

The nurse didn't ask questions.

Minutes and much moved equipment later, L learned that the doctor meant every word he said. He wanted Raito and L in the same room together. Pronto. Of course L held no opposition to the arrangement. He wanted to see with his own eyes that Raito was alive. Judging from the doctor's rants, he had been even closer to death than L had been.

_Why?_

"Of the two of us, who would you say sustained the severest injuries?" L asked the nurse. She blinked down at him as she wheeled his bed down the wide hallway. "I haven't actually seen your friend, but on paper, you have more to cry about."

"Mmm…" hummed L.

The nurse continued tentatively. "Your doctor says the stress has gotten to him. Maybe that's what's wrong."

"He always did worry in my absence," L muttered.

The traveling trio of nurses pushed him into a small, quiet, dark room. The frazzled doctor waited inside, impatiently tapping his clipboard again. He watched with a hawk's eye as the nurses pushed the bed into a corner. From his restricted vantage point, L could see several IV poles that didn't belong to him. Straining his eyes, he could make out the exhausted lines on Raito's face.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, L recognized that someone was trying to get his attention. L didn't care. Raito took complete priority over these people.

"Take these restraints off," L ordered flatly.

The doctor, who had been prattling on about some important issue or another, paused. "What?"

"Take them off," L deadpanned.

"No can do," the doctor grumbled.

"Do it."

"Your safety is this hospital's top priority. Your spine is very vulnerable right now. In order to keep from further injuring yourself-"

"I would take these restraints off if I were you."

"I can't do that."

L flat-out glared at him. No amount of expression could convey the black, sick, deadly dislike that he harbored for such an impregnable medical professional.

"You will remove these restraints. You will remove this neck brace. You will let me move, because if you don't, I will tear myself to shreds. I will break this spine of mine in half if it gets in my way. Understood?"

Silence.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way. You let me move for a few minutes, or I will snap my own back to your discredit. You choose."

These medical professionals knew better than to goad a suicidal patient. Instead of surrendering to L's viciousness, however, the doctor challenged him.

"I can always sedate you," he shrugged. "There's not much you can do in that state."

L rolled his eyes.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders remorselessly. "Sorry."

L sighed. "You know, if Raito-kun were awake, right now, he could show you what-for."

"Could he now?"

"Oh, yes. When he snaps, people die."

"Oh, do they really?"

Yes. They did. Really.

L realized he couldn't draw his Kira sword on anyone. Its double edge would cut Raito as well. Therefore, he chose to mope sourly in his spot, threats made empty by the brazen arrogance of the doctor.

"The least you can do is get rid of this neck brace. My neck is fine," L grouched.

"Can't do that either. Sorry."

L pouted. He used all of the free movement in his body to catch a glimpse of Raito's face again. He needed to touch that face. He needed to trace its contours and run his fingers through Raito's soft, messy hair. He didn't want to wait for an outsider's permission to move.

"There are a few questions I want to ask you," the doctor introduced a new topic.

"Wonderful. By all means, go ahead," L grumbled.

"First of all, what is your full name?"

L grinned. "My full name is L."

The doctor slammed his head into his clipboard. "Not this crap again. Just give me a straight answer. We can get this over with and I will leave you alone."

"L is a straight answer," L replied. "As a matter of fact, it is straight in two directions. Three or even four if you count certain fonts. It must be a capital L, though. Elsewise your answer may be rather curved."

"Skipping that one," the doctor growled. "We'll get back to that later. Next question: Are you especially familiar with Yagami Raito."

"Familiar indeed," answered L.

"Is his father Yagami Soichiro?"

"That is his father's name, yes."

"Is this the Yagami Raito who went missing in the year 2009 and was also named a person of interest by a certain Tokyo police task force?"

"That would depend on what interest this certain Tokyo police task force had in him," L replied with a wiggle of the eyebrows.

The doctor glared shallowly. "Tell Inoue-san to call Yagami Soichiro right away. We've found his son."

"Ah. One question answered. What a skilled interrogator you are," goaded L. "I _could_ tell you the answers to your other questions if you set me free, you know."

The doctor's eyebrow twitched. He would not have his authority challenged, however. He gave one of his associates the order to monitor the room before storming back into the depths of the hospital.

The door slid shut behind him.

L sighed.

What a wonderful silence it would be if he could just… touch…

"Ohmygodyou're adorable."

And the silence shattered.

L quirked an eyebrow at the smirking umbra on the wall. "Well," he grumbled. "You certainly took your time."

"Oh, y'know…" Matt bobbed his head. "I actually lost you guys for a while. That snow is seriously nasty. But all I had to do was follow the trail of blood and voila! There you are."

"Not funny," L warned.

"I thought it was funny," muttered Matt.

Suddenly, L was struck by a bolt of inspiration. "Matt, you don't suppose you can come here for a moment? I have an itch I'd like to scratch."

"No, you don't," Matt smirked after he melted into the wall and reappeared at the foot of L's hospital bed. "You just want me to free you from your human bonds, eh, Calypso?"

L glared.

"My pleasure," droned Matt.

He set to work unwrapping L's arms and legs. "Maybe this isn't such a good idea, L. I mean, your back's pretty messed up, right? You could do some serious damage if you twist around too much."

"I'll survive," L grumbled.

"Suit yourself," groaned Matt.

L carefully shifted his arms and legs, discovering that he had much less control over them than he thought. He decided to move only into a more comfortable position and left it at that. Once he had free reign over his neck, he carefully lolled his head to the side.

Raito was an angel, even in the cold claws of suffering. L could tell that his unconsciousness was by no means peaceful. Everything about him seemed hopeless and helpless. Thick, rouge smudges of restlessness pooled around Raito's eyes. His hair was kinked and matted with blood and stress. Even in sleep his breathing was shallow and ragged. His chest shuddered as it rose and fell.

A deep, powerful protectiveness blazed in L. He never wanted Raito to feel that much pain and he desperately needed to ward it away. Taking hold of his IV stand in one hand and Raito's bed in the other, L pulled his bed closer to Raito's. He covered Raito's cold fingers with warm ones of his own.

For now, it was all that he could do.

----

Raito ached.

He ached and he ached and he ached and no amount of morphine could ever relieve it. He didn't want to open his eyes. He didn't want to be alone.

He wondered vaguely if he had made other people feel this way. He wondered if criminals had families to cry for them. He remembered the innocent people he framed. They certainly had families. They had been good, law-abiding citizens until Raito turned them evil and killed them for it.

Criminals.

Innocents.

They all died.

No knowledge of any afterlife could soothe the empty soullessness Raito felt.

He killed Ryuzaki, too. It was his fault. Like an idiot, he charged into an open street. Like an idiot, he couldn't regain his balance after slipping on a stupid patch of ice. Like an idiot, he let himself slip in the first place. Like an idiot, he tripped and he fell. Ryuzaki had to save him. Out of the fucking kindness of his heart, Ryuzaki had to save him.

And it had been preordained.

Raito knew it had been. The conditions were perfect. Raito, Kira, trips and falls into the street. His friend saves his life and dies in the process.

_Ryuzaki. L. Whatever name suits him best. Saves a friend from being struck by a speeding bus. He, himself, is struck instead. Dies on impact._

Saves a friend.

Saves a best friend.

Saves a partner.

Saves the single person he would die to save.

And dies.

Raito couldn't prevent it. He was such an idiot for falling into such an obvious trap in the first place, but he couldn't do anything about it. Fate made it happen and he was too goddamn weak to fight it.

Death note, snap, whatever it was, Raito was weaker. Raito fell prey to it and it killed Ryuzaki.

_Raito_ killed him.

He felt cold, salty tears pooling at the corners of his eyes. He felt them rolling and dropping onto his pillow, his hair, his ears. He felt like a helpless idiot, lying there on his back, vulnerable and weak. Washed-up. Belly-up. Dead. Stiff. Rotting.

Worthless.

He turned onto his side and sobbed. He let guilt consume him. He cried and dribbled and slobbered into his pillow like a filthy animal. He wanted to die. He wanted the earth to swallow him whole. He didn't want to see an afterlife. He wanted to vanish. He wanted to feel the loneliness of nothingness. He wanted to hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing, taste nothing, smell nothing, _be_ nothing…

_Forget everything._

Everything.

Then, he felt something.

Something on his hand. Surrounding it. Soft. Warm. Telling him to stop crying. Reminding him that he never cried. Something…

Raito opened his eyes. Misty smudges blurred his vision. He saw dark. Dark. Gloom. Grey. He saw himself. Skin bleached like his sheets. He followed his arm. Down. Down to his hand.

He found it beneath another one. Even paler than his. A peculiar, poetic sort of wrinkly. Hopelessly pink thumbs. Ragged thumbnails.

He followed it.

Up into an arm. Up into a stooped shoulder. Through wrinkles of clothing and a maze of indistinguishable bands.

An eye.

A smile.

Raito froze again and his heart dropped through the floor.

Lips curved, pressed, opened.

"Boo!"

(How.)

"It seemed an appropriate greeting. Especially since you look like you've seen a ghost."

(Why.)

"Earth to Raito-kun. Come in, Raito-kun."

(Move.)

Tears. Hot. Arms. Free. Legs. Shift. Hands. Grab. Feet. Walk. Sheets. Rustle. Blankets. Tangle. Tiles. Cold. Climb. Up. Up. Higher. Over. Move. Move. _Move_. _Move_!

"Move over. Now."

"As you wish, your majesty."

Raito climbed into Ryuzaki's hospital bed, nudged him over, cuddled desperately into his chest, and cried.

----

Chibi Matt: STRUCK BY A VEHICLE

Me: Mmm… I smell Karma.

Chibi Matt: Cue humanity.

Chibi Misa: Oh, the humanity!

Me: Oh, the Japanity!

Chibi Matt: That too.

Me: Well, I certainly hope this makes up for the wait. I'm a bitch, I know. If it makes you feel any better, I took an entire day off of school to finish it. (Finish, of course, meaning write the last twenty or so pages of it in size twelve font.) Enjoy your spoils. I definitely did. This was the best chapter to write thus far.

Chibi Matt: You love giving Raito excuses to act like a sap.

Me: Hooray for humanity, right? Finally, some true, non-awkward, pure love.

Chibi Misa: Your doctors are mean.

Me: My mom is a nurse and I watch too much House, okay? Leave me alone D:

Chibi Misa: You've reached the end of two rants and a chapter! Hooray for you! Cookies for survivors, but only if you review! Do what good readers do! Review, review, review!


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